SEISMIC BASE ISOLATION IN STRENGTHENING AN EXISTING RETROFITTED MASONRY-REINFORCED CONCRETE BUILDING IN HUATING - CHINA

Okine Michael Nii Sarbah, Zhao Jianchang, Mashrah Waleed Ali Hamed

Abstract: Seismic base isolation is a fast advancing technology in which the superstructure is isolated from the entire structure or from the substructure by means of rubber bearing isolators or frictional sliding isolators. The main aim of the base isolation technology is to isolate the structure from the harmful effects of the ground accelerations or earthquake excitations. In this paper, the procedure for the selection of the three ground motions is briefly explained and they are used in analyzing a masonry – reinforced concrete office building for the Internal Revenue Service in the Huating County of the Pingliang City in China. The structure is first analyzed with the PKPM software to ascertain the structural internal forces are within reasonable limits but because this software cannot be used to advance analysis in the area of base isolation, Sap 2000 is used to remodel the structure, analyze, then apply the seismic base isolation. This office building has been strengthened to be fortified against ultimate bearing capacity failure as it is an existing structure. The lead rubber bearing isolators, LRB 400, LRB 500 and LRB 600 are used to isolate the building model and results from the structural response are compared, first amongst the time histories and then between the enveloped time histories and the response spectrum. The floor joint accelerations are observed to be reduced and the joint velocities as well, whereas the floor joint displacements are increased. The response spectrum alone is seen to not be an enough ground acceleration parameter in a seismic analysis and design of this model; as such it is recommended to include time history analysis. The maximum percentage decrease in acceleration and velocity can be seen occurring in the response spectrum, namely, 85.82% and 59.76%, respectively. The maximum percentage increase in the displacement is also evident in the response spectrum, 57.59%. In the time histories, the maximum is seen in Ec County Y-direction for the acceleration reduction at a value of 60.57%; Delta artif records a maximum velocity reduction of 28.42% in the Y-direction and finally, the Delta artif X-direction also records a maximum displacement increment, at a value of 26.36%.

Keywords: Seismic base isolation, Retrofitting, Strengthening, Masonry - reinforced concrete building, Time history analysis, Response spectrum analysis, Sap2000, PKPM software, Lead rubber isolator (LRB)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0410029