Incremental Dynamic Analysis and Fragility Assessment of Buildings with Different Structural Arrangements Experiencing Earthquake-Induced Structural Pounding

Abstract

Structural pounding is considered as one of the most critical phenomena occurring during earthquakes. This paper presents the incremental dynamic analysis and fragility assessment of buildings experiencing earthquake-induced pounding. Three 3-D buildings with different number of storeys and under different structural arrangements have been considered. Three pounding scenarios have been taken into account, i.e. pounding between 5-storey and 7-storey buildings, pounding between 5-storey and 9-storey buildings and pounding between 7-storey and 9-storey buildings. The incremental dynamic analysis and fragility assessment has been performed for these three buildings in the three pounding scenarios as well as for the no pounding case. The results of both incremental dynamic analysis and fragility assessment illustrate that pounding can be beneficial and destructive, depending on the structural response and ground motion shift versus time. No clear relation has been observed because pounding is a highly complicated phenomenon.