Verification of Formulas for Periods of Adjacent Buildings Used to Assess Minimum Separation Gap Preventing Structural Pounding during Earthquakes

Abstract

Insufficient separation distance between adjacent buildings may lead to serious damages during earthquakes due to structural pounding. The best way to prevent collisions is to provide sufficiently large separation distance between structures. In this paper, the periods of two closely spaced linear and nonlinear buildings have been investigated so as to accurately assess the minimum in-between separation gap. A new equation to calculate the effective periods of inelastic buildings has been proposed, and its effectiveness has been verified through numerical analysis. The results of the investigation conducted for inelastic buildings with different number of stories indicate that the proposed formula allows us to prevent earthquake-induced structural pounding by ensuring an adequate value of seismic gap.