EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS

Earthquake Engng Struct. Dyn. 2012; 41:17091716

Published online 27 January 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/eqe.2158

Structural performance of a base-isolated reinforced concrete

building subjected to seismic pounding
Deepak R. Pant and Anil C. Wijeyewickrema*,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan

SUMMARY
The effects of seismic pounding on the structural performance of a base-isolated reinforced concrete (RC) building are investigated, with a view to evaluate the inuence of adjacent structures and separation between structures
on the pounding response. In particular, seismic pounding of a typical four-story base-isolated RC building with
retaining walls at the base and with a four-story xed-base RC building is studied. Three-dimensional nite element analyses are carried out considering material and geometric nonlinearities. The structural performance of the
base-isolated building is evaluated considering various earthquake excitations. It is found that the performance of
the base-isolated building is substantially inuenced by the pounding. The investigated base-isolated building
shows good resistance against shear failure and the predominant mode of failure due to pounding is exural.
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 23 June 2011; Revised 4 December 2011; Accepted 5 December 2011
KEY WORDS:

base-isolated RC building; nonlinear analysis; seismic pounding

1. INTRODUCTION
Base isolation is widely considered as an efcient technique to improve seismic performance of buildings,
because the inter-story drifts, shear forces, and oor accelerations of a base-isolated building are reduced
when compared with those of a conventional xed-base building [1, 2]. Although base isolation decreases
the possibility of damage to a building, it induces large displacements in the structure relative to the
ground. This increases the potential of impact or pounding of a building with adjacent structures. In
general, pounding should not occur because the necessary separation specied by building codes is
provided around the building. Nonetheless, this separation may not be available because of reasons
such as errors in construction (e.g., Fire Command and Control (FCC) building in Los Angeles), errors
in selection and interpretation of seismic hazard, and instances where the site hazard level has
been increased because of availability of more recent data. The consequences of the pounding of
base-isolated buildings could be signicant, eliminating major benets of the base isolation and causing
much more damage than damage to a similar xed-base building.
Although seismic pounding of xed-base buildings has been studied extensively for more than two
decades (see, for example, [35]), seismic pounding of base-isolated buildings has not drawn much
attention, until more recently (see, for example, [6, 7]). Previous studies indicate that the response of
a base-isolated building is substantially inuenced by seismic pounding. However, except the work
by Tsai [6] in which buildings were modeled as elastoplastic shear beams, the other studies have
been carried out using simplied multi-degree-of-freedom lumped mass systems, assuming that the
superstructure remains elastic. Furthermore, while considering the pounding of a base-isolated
*Correspondence to: Anil C. Wijeyewickrema, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of
Technology, 2-12-1 O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.

E-mail: wijeyewickrema.a.aa@m.titech.ac.jp
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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D. R. PANT AND A. C. WIJEYEWICKREMA

building with a xed-base building, only oor-to-oor pounding has been considered in the past.
Floor-to-column pounding has also been considered earlier but not in the context of base-isolated
buildings [4].
Recently, in the ATC-63 project (documented in FEMA P695 [8]), a methodology was presented to
determine the probability of failure given the maximum earthquake. The methodology is quite general
and can be applied to a variety of structural systems using various modeling techniques. Included in the
example applications and supporting studies is the collapse evaluation of seismically isolated
structures. The base-isolated system consists of the superstructure, the isolation system, and the
moat wall. Two-dimensional models with lumped plasticity beam-column elements were used in
that study. The present study uses three-dimensional models with distributed plasticity beam-column
elements and considers three different congurations but does not consider uncertainties in ground
motion and modeling parameters that were considered in FEMA P695. Our study, which does not
focus on collapse prediction based on the collapse margin ratio, provides information on (i) the
effect of pounding on inter-story drifts and story shear forces along the height of the building, with
respect to the separation distance and (ii) the mechanism behind the increase of seismic demands
due to pounding.
The specic objectives of the present study are (i) to assess the effect of seismic pounding on the
structural performance of a base-isolated reinforced concrete (RC) building and (ii) to evaluate the
inuence of adjacent structures and separation distance between structures on the pounding
response. In particular, seismic pounding of a typical four-story base-isolated RC building with
retaining walls at the base and with a four-story xed-base RC building is studied. Floor-to-column
pounding with the adjacent building is considered. The buildings were designed by the equivalent
lateral force (ELF) procedure, following the provisions of 2009 International Building Code [9],
ASCE 7-05 [10], and ACI 318-08 [11]. Three-dimensional nite element (FE) modeling of
structures is adopted and material as well as geometric nonlinearity is considered. A modied
KelvinVoigt impact force model, which has recently been proposed [5] and implemented in an
existing FE program OpenSees [12], is used to simulate the impact.
The base-isolated structure considered in this study has the following two design limitations:
(1) To gain insights into seismic pounding of the base-isolated building, the separation distance is
restricted to values less than the total maximum displacement DTM. The design standard ASCE
7-05 [10] specically states that in the event that the isolator displacements are restricted below
DTM, the maximum considered earthquake (MCE) response should be based on a nonlinear timehistory analysis with due consideration of the behavior of the restraining system. However, while
designing the base-isolated building in the present study, an ELF procedure was used, and the
MCE response was not calculated for each separation distance using a nonlinear time-history analysis.
Hence, this study corresponds to the case where, accidently or in error, the isolators are restricted.
(2) The design was based on the ELF procedure, usually used for a preliminary design. The state of
practice for the design of seismically isolated structures is that the design based on ELF procedure
is veried by nonlinear time-history analyses using two models, namely a model with upper-bound
stiffness properties and a model with lower-bound stiffness properties of the isolator units. These
time-history analyses should be carried out for the most critical orientations with three pairs
(seven pairs) of earthquakes with results based on maximum (average) response, for both the
design earthquake (DE) and the MCE. In this paper, nominal values of isolator properties are used.

2. BASE-ISOLATED BUILDING AND EARTHQUAKE GROUND MOTIONS

A four-story, two-bay by two-bay base-isolated RC moment-frame building is chosen as a typical
building. Three congurations are considered: Conguration A: base-isolated building with a
retaining wall on one side (right side); Conguration B: base-isolated building with a retaining wall
and a four-story xed-base RC building on one side (right side); and Conguration C: base-isolated
building with retaining walls on both sides (Figure 1). The retaining walls extend from ground level
up to the base level of the building.
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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PERFORMANCE OF A BASE-ISOLATED BUILDING SUBJECTED TO SEISMIC POUNDING

1

2
C

1
B

A
B

ex

ex

cita

cita

tio

tio

ex

cita

(a)

(b)

tio

(c)

Figure 1. (a) Conguration A; (b) Conguration B; and (c) Conguration C.

The bay widths of the base-isolated building and the xed-base building in both directions are 6.0 m.
The story height of the buildings is 3.6 m, except for the rst story of the xed-base building, which is
1.8-m high. The buildings were assumed to be located on a stiff soil site (site class D) and were
intended to be used as school buildings (occupancy category III). The design spectral accelerations
are Ss = 1.29g and S1 = 0.49g at short period and 1.0-s period, respectively. The superstructure of
the base-isolated building and the xed-base building were designed for the forces associated with
the DE. The compressive strength of concrete is 28 MPa, and the yield strengths of main steel
reinforcement bars and ties are 420 and 300 MPa, respectively. Total seismic weights are computed
as 7,627 and 6,789 kN for the base-isolated building and the xed-base building, respectively. On
the basis of the site class, design spectral accelerations, and occupancy category, seismic design
category D is assigned and the special moment frame system is chosen for the structures. The lead
rubber bearing isolation system was chosen for the base-isolated building. The isolation system was
designed for the effects of MCE with SMS = 1.29g and SM1 = 0.74g for which the total maximum
displacement demands DTM = 462 mm. Identical 750-mm-diameter circular bearings having a
65-mm-diameter lead core are provided under each of the nine column bases. Each bearing consists
of thirty 15-mm-thick rubber layers alternating with 2-mm-thick steel shims. The main properties of
isolation system for the DE and MCE are shown in Table I. The fundamental periods of the baseisolated building and the xed-base building are 2.6 s and 0.6 s, respectively. The superstructure of
the base-isolated building for a xed-base condition has a fundamental period of 0.8 s.
In order to investigate the inuence of separation distance, the base-isolated building in each
conguration is assumed to be separated by various separation distances dg from the adjacent structures,
and the ratio of separation distance to the design displacement dg/DD is taken as 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9,
and 1.0, where DD = 225 mm is the design displacement. It is noted that the isolation system has been
arbitrarily restrained to have a displacement capacity of 112.5225 mm (i.e., 0.5DD to DD) to highlight
the effects of seismic pounding.
Four earthquakes are chosen to represent different types of seismic loading (Table II). To have a
common hazard level, the earthquake ground motions are matched to the design response spectrum
at 5% damping using wavelet adjustments [13]. The characteristics of scaled ground motion
excitations are shown in Table II.

Table I. Lead rubber bearing isolation system characteristics.

Effective period
Effective damping
Isolator displacement
Total displacement

DE

MCE

TD = 2.51 s
bD = 17%
DD = 225 mm
DTD = 259 mm

TM = 2.68 s
bM = 15%
DM = 402 mm
DTM = 462 mm

DE, design earthquake; MCE, maximum considered earthquake.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Table II. Scaled earthquake ground motions.

Hachinohe
Imperial Valley
Kobe
Northridge

Station

PGA (g)

PGV (cm/s)

PGD (cm)

Hachinohe City
El Centro Array #9
JMA Kobe
Rinaldi Receiving St.

0.390
0.392
0.406
0.396

61.50
53.39
49.55
66.18

22.16
36.41
31.15
38.75

PGA, peak ground acceleration; PGV, peak ground velocity; PGD, peak ground displacement.

3. NUMERICAL MODELING AND ANALYSIS METHOD

Three-dimensional FE analysis of seismic pounding of the base-isolated building is carried out
using OpenSees [12]. Beams and columns are modeled using force-based, EulerBernoulli ber
beam-column elements that account for the spread of inelasticity along the length of the element.
For the concrete and the reinforcing steel, the constitutive models of Park et al. [14] and
Menegotto and Pinto [15], respectively, are used. Lead rubber bearings are modeled using
elastomeric bearing elements. A bilinear hysteretic model that is well suited for lead rubber
bearings is used to represent the shear forcedeformation relationship of the elements [2]. Yield
force Fy = 36. 87 kN, initial stiffness K1 = 3,927 kN/m, and a = K2/K1 = 0.1, where K2 is the postyield stiffness, are prescribed for the model based on the design data. A linear elastic spring
model with stiffness Kv = 310, 026 kN/m is used to model the compressive forcedeformation
relationship of the bearings. To simulate the in-plane rigid diaphragm behavior of slabs, the
nodes on each oor level are constrained to a master node located at the centroid of the oor.
Impact is modeled using zero-length elements, which are used as contact elements between
structures (Figure 1). The contact elements are based on the modied KelvinVoigt model [5],
where the total stiffness of the spring elements kl at a oor level, computed as the axial stiffness
of the building slab, is 5,000 MN/m, and the coefcient of restitution r = 0.65. Retaining walls
are modeled as rigid objects, and backll soilstructure interaction is considered outside the
scope of this study.
Nonlinear time-history analyses for all the seismic pounding cases considered in this study are
performed for the effects of historic earthquake ground motions scaled to represent DE (Table II).
The integration of equations of motion is accomplished using Newmarks method. The P effect
for the superstructure as well as the isolation system is included in the analyses to consider
geometric nonlinearity.

4. ANALYSIS RESULTS
In this section, the response of the base-isolated building in each conguration is discussed. For
comparison purposes, the response of the building without pounding is also presented. In this study,
inter-story drift ratios in the ranges of 0.2%0.5%, 0.5%1.5%, and 1.5%3% correspond to
nonstructural damage, moderate structural damage, and severe structural damage, respectively [16].
Inter-story drift ratios greater than 3% can be assumed to correspond to a collapsed story. Unless
noted otherwise, the results presented represent the maximum response generated due to all four
earthquake excitations.
Figure 2 presents inter-story drift ratios and story shear forces for the base-isolated building.
The maximum inter-story drift ratio in the base-isolated building when there is no pounding is
0.51% at the second story, indicating essentially no structural damage. However, the building
undergoes moderate damage at all the stories except the top story when pounding occurs in
Conguration A. Increase in drift demands due to pounding in Conguration B is less
compared with Conguration A, at all the stories except the top story, where a slight increase
in the demand is observed. This is mainly because (i) the base-isolated building pounds with
the xed-base building before it can impact the rigid retaining wall at the base, which, in turn,
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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PERFORMANCE OF A BASE-ISOLATED BUILDING SUBJECTED TO SEISMIC POUNDING

Floor level

Roof

2F
1F
Base

Config. C

Config. B

No pounding
dg/DD = 1.0
dg/DD = 0.9
dg/DD = 0.8
dg/DD = 0.7
dg/DD = 0.6
dg/DD = 0.5

3F

Config. A
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

Inter-story drift ratio (%)

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

(a)

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

Inter-story drift ratio (%)

Inter-story drift ratio (%)

(b)

(c)

Roof

Floor level

Config. A

Config. B

Config. C

3F
2F
1F
Base
100

400

700

1000

1300

1600

100

Story shear force (kN)

(d)

400

700

1000

1300

1600

100

Story shear force (kN)

(e)

400

700

1000

1300

1600

Story shear force (kN)

(f)

Figure 2. Response of the base-isolated building in each conguration: (a)(c) inter-story drift ratio and
(d)(f) story shear force.

reduces the severity of impact at the base of the building, and (ii) the presence of the xed-base
building provides lateral support, limiting high drift demands that are likely to occur in the baseisolated building. Signicant increase in drift demands at the rst story due to pounding is
evident in Conguration C. The maximum inter-story drift ratio is 3.2%, indicating collapse of
the rst story. Interestingly, the effect of pounding is more pronounced in the immediate
vicinity of impact, because the drift demands at all the stories except the rst story are nearly
the same as those observed in Conguration A. In general, the drifts rst increase with
decreasing separation distance between structures and then decrease with further reduction in
the separation. The increase in story shear forces is less severe compared with the increase in
inter-story drifts except in Conguration B, but the trends in the increase of the shear forces
and the drifts along the height of the building are similar. Note that the change in shear force
between oors seen in Figure 2(e) is due to oor-to-column pounding. In general, the shear
forces increase with reduction in the separation between structures.
Maximum drift demand of 3.2% in Conguration C (Figure 2(c)) was found to be due to the
Northridge earthquake. Drift demands due to other earthquakes were found to be less than 1.5% for
all the cases examined. Furthermore, although the retaining walls are placed on both sides of the
building in Conguration C, the Northridge and Imperial Valley earthquakes resulted only in onesided impact. Highest damage due to the Northridge earthquake is also justied because of its
largest peak ground velocity and peak ground displacement among the four earthquakes (Table II).
To further clarify this, the base and rst-oor horizontal displacement time histories are plotted for
the Northridge and Imperial Valley earthquakes for dg/DD = 0.6 in Figure 3. Here, a base
displacement exceeding dg indicates the occurrence of pounding with a retaining wall. The velocities
of the base prior to the rst instance of impact were found to be 774 and 404 mm/s for the
Northridge earthquake and the Imperial Valley earthquake, respectively. Pounding resulted in an
inter-story drift of 3.2% at time t = 2.68 s (1.2% at t = 4.9 s) for the Northridge (Imperial Valley)
earthquake. Higher drift demand for the Northridge earthquake is clearly attributed to the higher
relative velocity of the colliding bodies prior to the impact. Note that the maximum drift in
Conguration C for the Northridge earthquake is due to pounding only on the left side (Figure 3(a)).
To enable the comparison of the response due to one-sided pounding in Conguration A with that
of two-sided pounding in Conguration C, the peak inter-story drift ratios at the rst story are plotted
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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D. R. PANT AND A. C. WIJEYEWICKREMA

Displacement (mm)

300
Base
First floor

200
100
0
-100
-200
-300

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 0

Time (s)

(a)

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Time (s)

(b)

Figure 3. Floor horizontal displacement time histories of the base-isolated building in Conguration C for
dg/DD = 0.6 : (a) Northridge earthquake and (b) Imperial Valley earthquake. The dashed lines indicate the
location of the retaining walls. Displacement towards the right side of the building is taken as positive.

in Figure 4 for Hachinohe and Kobe, which were the only two earthquake excitations that caused twosided pounding of the building. It is clear that the drift demands under two-sided pounding are less
compared with those under one-sided pounding.
It was found that the maximum shear forces induced in the columns of the base-isolated building
for all the considered cases are less than the shear capacities calculated according to ACI 318-08
[11]. For example, shear capacities of columns 2C and 3C (Figure 1) in Conguration B are
compared with induced shear forces in Figure 5. Note that in Conguration B the maximum
increase in shear force due to pounding was highest among all three congurations (Figure 2(e)).
This indicates that the damage to the building due to pounding is predominantly exural, and
shear failure does not occur.

1
0.8
0.6
0.4

Config. A
Config. C

0.2
0
0.5

(a)

0.8

Inter-story drift ratio (%)

Inter-story drift ratio (%)

1.2

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.5

dg /D D

(b)

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

dg /D D

Figure 4. Inter-story drift ratio at rst story of the base-isolated building for (a) Hachinohe earthquake and
(b) Kobe earthquake.

Roof

3F
2F

2F
1F

1F
Base

No pounding
dg/DD = 1.0
dg/DD = 0.9
dg/DD = 0.8
dg/DD = 0.7
dg/DD = 0.6
dg/DD = 0.5
Capacity

3F

Floor level

Floor level

Roof

50

Base

100 150 200 250 300 350 400

(a)

50

100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Column shear force (kN)

Column shear force (kN)

(b)

Figure 5. Comparison of shear capacities with maximum shear forces in Conguration B: (a) column 2C and
(b) column 3C.
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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1715

5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Structural performance of a typical four-story base-isolated RC building during seismic pounding with
adjacent structures was evaluated. Although the total maximum displacement demand of the isolation
system for the MCE was found to be 462 mm, the separation distance of the building from adjacent
structures was arbitrarily taken as 112.5225 mm to investigate the effects of seismic pounding.
Four historic earthquake ground motions scaled to represent DE were considered to evaluate the
performance of the base-isolated building using three-dimensional nonlinear FE analysis.
This study has shown that seismic pounding may have signicant effects on the performance of
base-isolated buildings. One-sided pounding of the building with a retaining wall at the base in
Conguration C initiates collapse, depending upon the clear space maintained around the building.
Two-sided pounding with the retaining walls at the base in Conguration C is found to be less
critical than the one-sided pounding with the retaining wall at the base in Conguration A.
Pounding of the base-isolated building with the retaining wall and the xed-base building on one
side in Conguration B is found to be less critical than one-sided or two-sided pounding with
retaining walls at the base. The bottom stories of the base-isolated building seem to be most
vulnerable when pounding with the retaining wall at the base is considered in Congurations A and
C. However, upper stories experience more damage compared with bottom stories when pounding is
considered with the retaining wall and the xed-base building. The investigated base-isolated
building does not experience shear failure due to pounding. In general, the degree of exural
damage due to pounding rst increases with decreasing separation between structures and then
decreases with further reduction in the separation.
The results of this study correspond to a base-isolated structure with the two design limitations noted
in Section 1. Because the present study does not assess the probability of collapse given the maximum
earthquake, further studies incorporating the recommendations of the ATC-63 project [8] could be
carried out. The results presented herein are representative of the performance of typical mid-rise
base-isolated RC buildings, but numerous parameter studies are required before general conclusions
can be reached.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Financial support from the Center for Urban Earthquake Engineering (CUEE), Tokyo Institute of Technology, is
acknowledged. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions, in particular,
for bringing to our attention the ATC-63 study and for pointing out the limitations of the present study.
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Earthquake Engng Struct. Dyn. 2012; 41:17091716

DOI: 10.1002/eqe