Experiments on coupled technique for adjacent similar buildings

Abstract

Increasing the population, urbanization has led to rapid construction of buildings. Due to space constraints and an increase in land cost, these buildings are built too close to each other and can cause damage under dynamic actions such as earthquakes. A new technique, known as structural coupling, has been developed recently, has found very effective in dissipating the dispersive vibrations. So far using coupling technique, adjacent dissimilar buildings are connected through a coupling device, such that it can reduce the dynamic response of the structure. The application of the structural coupling technique becomes challenging for similar buildings due to their in-phase behavior under dynamic loads. In the current research, the seismic performance of similar buildings with the coupling technique is experimentally tested on a shake table. A three storey model has been simulated using a unidirectional shake table with the scaled ground motion. Similar building construction uncertainties are accounted for in the study with slight variations in their dynamic properties. The connection devices used are bracings and passive viscoelastic dampers. The results obtained confirm the effectiveness of structural coupling technique with various configurations of dampers for similar buildings over seismic protection individual buildings.