Earthquake Engineering Research - HKU Libraries - The University ...

28
Figure 17. A finite element model for the soil-pile-structure interaction
Pounding of Adjacent Buildings
Pounding between adjacent structures or between parts of the same structure during major earthquakes
has often been reported, and it has also been identified as one of the main causes for structural
damages or for complete collapse of structures (Davis 1992, Chau and Wei 2001). For example,
poundings between structures have been observed in Alaska Earthquake of 1964, San Fernando
Earthquake of 1971, Mexico City Earthquake of 1985, Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989, Kobe
Earthquake of 1995 and Taiwan Chi-Chi Earthquake of 1999. Hong Kong is a densely populated
modern city with most buildings built closely to each other and on reclaimed land. The separation
distances between adjacent buildings in some cases are very small, controlled by static wind load only
without considering any seismic design requirements. Recently, Chau and Wei (2001) extended the
model of Davis (1992) to consider poundings as nonlinear impacts between two single-degree-offireedom
(SDOF) oscillators. To validate this model, Chau et al. (2002b) performed a series of shaking
table tests on poundings between two steel towers that can be considered approximately as singledegree-of-freedom
oscillators (see Fig. 18). Both observations on the periodic and chaotic poundings
agree quantitatively with the prediction.