Pounding in Base-Isolated Buildings Subjected to Underground Blasting

Abstract

The increase in the world population has led to a decrease in available resources across the globe. One such important resource is land to construct civil engineering structures. The unavailability of land resources has led to the fact that people are building structures adjacent to each other and neglecting standard guidelines for minimum separation distance between structures. This results in mutual pounding between closely spaced structures in the event of an earthquake or strong ground motions generated due to an accidental underground blast or mining activities. The present study analyzes the pounding characteristics of buildings subjected to underground blast–induced ground vibrations. Two adjacent single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems are modeled as linear shear-type buildings in SAP2000, with different structural properties. The influence of friction base sliding isolations is also analyzed to prevent the pounding phenomenon. The influence of various factors—natural time period, separation gaps, charge mass, and friction coefficient—are also considered to study the pounding phenomenon. It is found that these parameters have a significant effect on structural responses and pounding characteristics.