POUNDING OF BUILDINGS DURING EARTHQUAKES - A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

The main objective of this paper is to provide information to structur al engineers on how to consider and mitigate the phenomenon of poundin g between adjacent structures during earthquakes. The first part of th e paper reviews the problem of seismic pounding; observations of damag e from pounding during recent earthquakes are described as well as the pounding potential for buildings in large Canadian cities. A review o f literature on analytical and numerical studies of earthquake poundin g is presented along with methods that have been proposed to mitigate pounding. In the second part of the paper, the seismic behaviour of th ree closely spaced, Canadian code designed, plane steel frames is inve stigated. Nonlinear time-step dynamic analyses and nonlinear elastic g ap elements, to model pounding, are used for this purpose. Several par ameters, such as separation distances, pounding locations, and ground motion characteristics, are considered.