An Innovative Gap Damper to Control Seismic Isolator Displacements in Extreme Earthquakes (NEES-2011-1080)

<p><strong>Title</strong>: An Innovative Gap Damper to Control Seismic Isolator Displacements in Extreme Earthquakes (NEES-2011-1080)</p> <p><b>Year Of Curation: </b>2015</p> <p><b>Description: </b>This research project will study the use of a special gap damper that is designed to limit the excessive deformation without causing impact and the associated high frequency motions and accelerations. In the design of a seismic base isolation system for a building, an isolator must be allowed to deform a significant amount. At the same time, this deformation must be controlled to avoid structural damage due to its reaching the displacement limit in a rare but possible strong ground motion. The project involves advanced analytical and numerical simulation studies to determine the optimal gap damper characteristics for desired performance such as the size of gap element, the ratio of pre- and post-gap isolation system stiffness, and the energy dissipation demand to reduce displacements without inducing large accelerations in the building. Experimental studies on a standalone damper will be conducted in the Structural Research Laboratory at Auburn University to characterize the energy dissipation properties of the damper. Shaking table studies at the Large Scale Structures Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno will validate the effectiveness of the proposed gap damper scheme. This study will provide an experimentally and analytically validated framework leading to reliable performance-based isolator design of buildings under different seismic scenarios.</p> <p><b>Award: </b>http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1101105</p> <p><b>PIs & CoPIs: </b>Keri Ryan, Justin Marshall</p> <p><b>Dates: </b>July 01, 2011 - June 30, 2014</p> <p><b>Organizations: </b>University of Nevada-Reno, NV, United States</p> <p><b>Facilities: </b>Auburn University, AL, United States,University of Nevada-Reno, NV, United States</p> <p><b>Sponsor: </b>NSF - n/a - 1101105</p> <p><b>Keywords: </b>nonstructural,fullscale,shaketabletesting</p> <p><b>Publications: --</b></p> <nb:citations></nb:citations>