Contact between Adjacent Structures

Abstract

In this paper, the static contact forces developed between adjacent structures are studied. Activation of a unilateral contact situation between adjacent buildings can be caused by external horizontal loading, e.g., the case of a design static loading representing an earthquake motion as in the pseudostatic method of analysis for earthquake‐resistant structures. By an appropriate finite element model and making use of the simplifying assumption of linear elastic behavior for the buildings, we are led to the formulation of a quadratic programming problem that can be tackled by any Q.P. code available. Some numerical experimentation performed for the horizontal static design loads reveals certain aspects of the interaction problem. In particular, the role of the aseismic gap between the structures is parametrically investigated.