Correlation Analysis on Seismic Response of Base-Isolated Multi-Storey Structures

In recent times with the increased use of multi-storey structures in India and around the world, the analysis of such buildings is of considerable significance. The base-isolation techniques prove to be very effective in enhancing the structural safety and integrity against severe earthquakes. During an earthquake the principal attack on a structure is by transient horizontal forces. The earthquake resistance of the structure depends on a combination of elastic strength, inelastic deformability and damping capacity of the structure. The geometrical parameters of the structure also have a major influence on the seismic response of both fixed base and base-isolated structures. In this paper a series of 3-dimensional dynamic response spectrum analyses are carried out in ETABS to investigate in detail the geometrical parametric responses of structures with and without base-isolation, when subjected to dynamic loading. The first phase of the study addresses the effect of each parameter such as bay width, number of bays, number of stories and story height of the structure subjected to earthquake forces. To have better interpretation of dynamic behavior, the study then focuses on deriving a correlation of these parameters with the response of the structure.