Title
Seismic protection of rocking structures with inerters
Date Issued
25 April 2019
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Thiers-Moggia R.
Imperial College London
Publisher(s)
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Abstract
The seismic behaviour of a wide variety of structures can be characterized by the rocking response of rigid blocks. Nevertheless, suitable seismic control strategies are presently limited and consist mostly on preventing rocking motion all together, which may induce undesirable stress concentrations and lead to impractical interventions. In this paper, we investigate the potential advantages of using supplemental rotational inertia to mitigate the effects of earthquakes on rocking structures. The newly proposed strategy employs inerters, which are mechanical devices that develop resisting forces proportional to the relative acceleration between their terminals and can be combined with a clutch to ensure their rotational inertia is only employed to oppose the motion. We demonstrate that the inclusion of the inerter effectively reduces the frequency parameter of the block, resulting in lower rotation seismic demands and enhanced stability due to the well-known size effects of the rocking behaviour. The effects of the inerter and inerter-clutch devices on the response scaling and similarity are also studied. An examination of their overturning fragility functions reveals that inerter-equipped structures experience reduced probabilities of overturning in comparison with uncontrolled bodies, while the addition of a clutch further improves their seismic stability. The concept advanced in this paper is particularly attractive for the protection of rocking bodies as it opens the possibility of nonlocally modifying the dynamic response of rocking structures without altering their geometry.
Start page
528
End page
547
Volume
48
Issue
5
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Geoquímica, Geofísica
Ingeniería estructural y municipal
Subjects
DOI
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85059158221
Source
Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics
ISSN of the container
00988847
Sponsor(s)
The authors acknowledge the financial support of CONICYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Chile), grant no. 72170284
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus