Seismic Isolation Devices: History and Recent Developments

Abstract

The idea of decoupling a structure from its foundation dated back to 1870 has now been worldwide accepted as a powerful tool to protect structures from earthquake damage. This paper is intended to review the developmental history of concept in seismic isolation devices rather than its applications in engineering. The literature review of more recent developments in seismic isolation is as complete as possible, but there may be considerable degree of omission in the later years because of the page limit and the rapid increase in research interest in this topic in the past years.