Mitigation of Earthquake Responses Using SMA Supplemented Base-Isolation Devices for Benchmark Building

Abstract

The efficiency of traditional isolation bearings is doubted for near-field earthquakes because these bearings undergo large displacement. A comparative study of different base isolation systems of base-isolated benchmark building is carried out in the present study. The study is based on assumption that buildings are bi-directionally acted upon by near-field earthquakes for assessing their relative performance in seismic control of the benchmark building. The time history variations of important response parameters and evaluation criteria of the benchmark building has been studied for assessing the effectiveness of the isolation systems. The Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) is utilized with elastomeric bearings and friction bearings to study the effectiveness of SMA wires with different isolators. The benchmark building is modelled as a discrete linear elastic shear structure having three degrees of- freedom at each floor level. Time domain dynamic analysis of this building has been carried out with the help of constant average acceleration Newmark’s method and equilibrium of non-linear forces has been taken care by fourth order Runge-Kutta method. The comparative performance of various isolation systems has been studied with uniform and hybrid combinations. The hybrid combination of SMA supplemented bearings works out the better isolation system keeping in view of the percentage reduction in evaluation criteria for smart base-isolated benchmark building. Furthermore, it is shown that, the functionality of SMA wire is not efficient with Lead Rubber Bearing system, as it is able to control displacement but increases the acceleration, base shear, story drift and isolation forces.