Isolation of Buildings from Rail-Tunnel Vibration: A Review

Abstract

Many buildings close to railway tunnels are built on steel springs or rubber bearings to isolate them from the ground-borne vibration. This base isolation of buildings has been employed since the 1960s and is becoming increasingly common as pressure grows to construct high-quality buildings on existing urban sites. This paper reviews the practice and theory behind base isolation, and discusses some recent developments in modelling base-isolated buildings with a view to predicting isolation performance.