International Review of Civil Engineering (I.RE.C.E.), Vol. xx, n.

x
June 2010

Relative Transmissibility to Control Isolator Displacement under

Earthquakes
César A. Morales1

Abstract – A solution to the large base displacement problem in isolated buildings under seismic
load is sought. This is based on the notion of relative transmissibility of mechanical vibrations. A
second and important novelty is the application of a new spectral characterization, as narrow
band, of ground displacement. In situations where the large isolator displacement is a concern,
the proposal can work as a base-isolation design procedure. A standard isolated structural model
is employed to demonstrate that the base displacement level can be reduced to well under the
ground displacement one, which results in a positive comparison with previous passive and active
control solutions; in fact, the design aim is a competitive ½ ratio for both displacements.
Nevertheless, it is also demonstrated that these good reduction levels are possible at the expense
of a large damping ratio. Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved.

Keywords: Seismic isolation, base displacement demand, passive control, relative transmissibility

In fact, the strategy has a main drawback which is at the

resulting new “story” or the relatively moving base: large
Nomenclature
isolator deformation levels [7]. This has been called large
mb: Base mass base displacement problem (LBD problem) [3-7] and can
ms: Superstructure mass be illustrated and solved considering the relative
ur: Base relative displacement displacement of the base [1,8,9] or studying the absolute
q: Superstructure relative displacement one [3,2]. Now, the relative displacement is more
cb: Isolator damping coefficient important than the absolute one in the physical design of
cs: Superstructure damping coefficient base-isolation systems, because the flexibility of service
kb: Isolator stiffness connections and the width of the isolation moat depend
ks: Superstructure stiffness on that motion. Therefore, the most common analysis
s: Ground displacement considers relative displacement, case in which the issue
Tr: Relative transmissibility has been also called isolator displacement demand [10].
X: Harmonic amplitude of the base Very recently, this more important (relative) LBD
S: Harmonic amplitude of the ground problem has been solved; it has been demonstrated that
r: Frequency ratio the isolator displacement can be controlled down to the
Circular frequency ground displacement level through a tuned mass damper
n: Natural frequency (TMD) [7], and reduced below the ground displacement
: Damping ratio by means of the newer inerter [9]. These two recent
M: Simplified model mass results have been based on the frequency-domain concept
LBD: Large base displacement of relative transmissibility from the field vibration
TMD: Tuned mass damper isolation of mechanical engineering, with the addition of
DBD: Displacement based design devices also coming from mechanical engineering: the
LRB: Lead rubber bearing vibration absorber (as TMDs are known in that field) and
NZ: New Zealand the inerter. Interestingly, the inerter comes theoretically
(S)DOF: (single) Degree of freedom from electrical engineering, but as an application, the
HDRB: High damping rubber bearing origin is in mechanical or automotive engineering [11].
R-FBI: Resilient-friction base isolator Nonetheless, an analysis of a solution to the LBD
problem in which no additional inertial device is used, is
necessary. Thus, this is what is studied in this work: a
I. Introduction solution to the LBD problem associated with isolated
structures by means of the simplest of relative
As seismic base isolation basically rigidizes or
transmissibilities. An additional contribution is the
eliminates mechanical stress in the superstructure [1-3], it
application of also recent results on the spectral content
is more than settled that it is a successful technique [3-6],
of seismic ground displacement [12]; the idea is that if
again, for the main part of a building, or superstructure.
the response problem is displacement, the focus

Manuscript received and revised xx 2010, accepted xx 2010 Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved
 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author
regarding the forcing part should be on ground
displacement rather than the ordinary and common
acceleration record. This idea is related to a modern
displacement in interest in the literature, from force-
based design to a displacement-based one (DBD) [13].
The development can serve as a design procedure of
linear or linearized base-isolation systems when large
displacements is a problem, and it is valid under both,
far-field and near-field conditions. The time response of a
standard 2-degree-of-freedom model, very valid for
isolated structures, under several actual and strong
seismic records, is obtained where the interest is mainly
on the base or isolator displacement. These displacement
results are compared first to the ground or input
displacement (which is another way of saying
transmissibility), and also to results obtained by other
proposals to solve the problem, passive and active, even
though in the last case there is the cost of energy,
maintenance and complexity.
Several other proposals to reduce isolated base
displacement have been reviewed, within and outside of
simple passive control. In the first group of solutions to
the LBD problem these have been found or selected, a
TMD proposition where plain white-noise is considered
as input and the absorber subsystem is designed but not
the isolation one [8]; also, hysteretic isolators [14], the
inerter or gyromass [15] and also exported from
mechanical engineering to earthquake engineering is the
Zener isolator [16]. More recent, complex and expensive
solutions than pure passive control have been proposed
as well, from this group these are selected: semiactive
control [17], hybrid control with mangnetorheological
dampers [18] and semi-active dampers [19].
The rest of the paper is organized as follows; first, the
optimization of the isolation system is presented; this
theoretical development is in the frequency domain.
Then, the results are presented, but in the more factual
time domain. Finally, the highly positive results are
discussed, where an important point is the level of
damping required.
II. Method
The fact that superstructure deformations are all but
cancelled in well-designed isolated structures is a mature
and well-known fact [3,4]. This means that a one-degree-
of-freedom model would be sufficient in many analyses
of these structures [8,4]; nevertheless, in this work
another standard but superior model in the literature is
used: a 2-degree-of-freedom one [1,20], shown in Fig. 1,
which does not completely cancel the vibrations of the
building proper. The linear isolation in Fig. 1 is
appropriate in analyses of base displacement [7,9], and
more generally, for isolation based on the laminated
rubber bearing (LRB) [21,22], and even nonlinear
systems as the NZ one can be analyzed with this model
through equivalent linearization [23].
In the analysis, the ground displacement is expressed
Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved
by s, the relative displacement of the base by ur and the
superstructure relative displacement by q. The equations
of motion of the structure are given by
where mb and ms are the base and superstructure masses,
respectively; kb and ks are the isolator and superstructure
stiffnesses, and cb and cs are the damping coefficients
(non-proportional damping).
Fig. 1. Two-degree-of-freedom model of isolated
structures
As known, it does not take much design effort for an
isolation system to basically cancel the superstructural
deformation; in other words, basically any isolation
system diminishes the interstory forces, from the fixed-
case levels [3]; however, the base displacement is large.
Before proposing a solution to this displacement
problem, it is remarked that if absolute base displacement
were the important variable, a direct comparison could be
made with the fixed results (where the base displacement
is the ground displacement) but when studying the
isolator deformation, no such comparison is possible [9].
This work’s goal is to solve the LBD problem
applying transmissibility concepts of vibration isolation,
and new ground displacement narrowbandness [12,24],
which are ideas in the frequency domain. A main novelty
is that the solution is not through additional inertial
devices as in previous work where the problem is tackled
also by means of optimizing transmissibility [7,9].
Nonetheless, it should be stressed that a prominent base
displacement is unavoidable in the isolation strategy; it
should not be minimized substantially because that would
imply a base motion similar to ground motion, or no
isolation.
Now, solely in the first step of the analysis, a one-
degree-of-freedom model is utilized (Fig. 2), which is
justified or explained in the beginning of this Section;
this simplified model is only used in a primary analysis to
understand the basic dynamics underlying the LBD
problem. The final response results will be of course with
the common 2-DOF model (Fig. 1); in fact, these time-
International Review of Civil Engineering, Vol. x, N. x
 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author
domain results will validate this primary SDOF
hypothesis.
This simple model allows for the application of
vibration isolation theory [25] from mechanical
engineering. Nonetheless, it is noted that although
absolute transmissibility is very basic theory (can be
found in any undergraduate textbook on vibrations), the
concept of relative transmissibility is not that widespread.
This is because isolator clearance is not a big concern in
machinery isolation, and also because absolute
transmissibility is associated not only with displacement
isolation but also with force isolation whereas relative
transmissibility applies only for displacement control
[25]. The theory establishes that if the body of Fig. 2 is
forced by a stationary harmonic motion of the ground, the
structure relative displacement is also harmonic (same
period), as shown in the figure where X and S are the
amplitudes; moreover, the ratio of the harmonic
amplitudes is defined by the relative transmissibility, as
(2)
s=S cost
x=X cos(t+
kb
cb M (=mb+ms)
Fig. 2. One-degree-of-freedom system under harmonic
motion of support
This relative transmissibility depends on the frequency
ratio r and damping factor , as [25,26]
(3)
where
(4a,b)
; n is the natural frequency. The plot of Tr is shown in
Fig. 3 and it can or must be a basis for a design procedure
in which isolator displacement control is an objective.
Now, there is no established design criterion in the
mechanical engineering community because –as
indicated– this function is not used as much as the
absolute one; in fact, a detailed plot (as shown) of this
transmissibility is hard to find in the literature. Therefore,
the plot is analyzed next; nevertheless, it should be clear
at the outset that isolation is attained if a design implies
Tr < 1; thus, Tr = 1 is marked on the plot.
Firstly, for  > 0.7, real isolation –no amplification–
is guaranteed for any exciting frequency; in other words,
it will be guaranteed that the peak isolator displacement
is below the peak ground displacement, if the excitation
is harmonic; of course, seismic motion is not harmonic,
but this is a point discussed in the second step of the
proposed methodology. The mathematical or more exact
value for the damping that guarantees true isolation,
Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved
obtained through calculus, is 0.707 or ; this is the
damping factor for which the transmissibility does not
have a maximum or resonant frequency. Therefore,  =
0.71 can be considered a first or primary design criterion
if the base relative displacement is to be controlled,
which is a real earthquake engineering objective or
problem. This is in agreement with previous work in
which certain level of damping is prescribed for reducing
isolator displacements [1,27]. Now, this should be
considered a primary criterion also because in practice
this damping level may not be easily achievable, although
there are real structures that have used high-damping
rubber bearings plus viscous dampers and thus a damping
factor of 50% can be achieved. An example is the San
Bernardino County Medical Center [1]; moreover, Jangid
and Kelly [27] in their study of isolation damping found
optimal damping factors of up to 0.5 (50%) and their
analysis graphs were up to 0.7. Therefore, in the Results
section results for both proposals will be shown, the
theoretical one ( = 0.71) and a practical one ( = 0.5).
Fig. 3. Relative transmissibility function Tr (r,) for 
0.2 to 0.8 (0.1 step)
It is meaningful to review the levels of base
displacement attained in the literature, as compared to
ground displacement; that is, transmissibilities. One of
the first papers in which the LBD problem is commented
on is from 25 years ago [28] where for the old El Centro
signal (peak displacement = 10.9 cm), the peak base
displacement was 13.4 cm, which means, amplification or
the peaks transmissibility is 1.23; now, by means of
active control the peak displacement is reduced to 9.2 cm
implying a transmissibility of 0.8 (structural
characteristics are in the ref. or more clearly in [9]. There
is another and more recent paper in which clear isolator
displacement results are shown [14], where the base
International Review of Civil Engineering, Vol. x, N. x
 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author
motion is controlled passively solely, by the NZ isolation
system, and the transmissibilities obtained were 1.3
(amplification) for the “Sylmar record” (Northridge
earthquake), and 0.26 for the Imperial Valley event
(1979); it is noted that the Sylmar signal is considered a
very challenging example of near-source motion by
others as well [1,29] (the 5-story superstructure has a
period of 0.5 s). Finally, there is a newer work where
good displacement results were attained with the R-FBI
system: the transmissibility through this passive control
was 0.97 for the same problematic Northridge record
above (and for a very similar 5-story building as above)
[22].
Therefore, aiming for a transmissibility of 1/2 for any
seismic input (the proposed method is general or tries not
to depend on a particular group of events) seems correct
or an improvement over previous results. For the
damping factor established for the laminated rubber
bearings plus viscous dampers system, this implies a
frequency ratio r = 0.76; thus, the natural frequency of
the isolated structure should be 1.32 times the dominant
frequency of the ground displacement:
(5)
Now, a harmonic signal has indeed only one dominant
frequency, but a random variable as ground motion does
not necessarily have dominant frequencies; in fact, the
customary acceleration records are wide band, and are
modelled even as white noise in base-isolation papers [8].
Nevertheless, it has been previously found that horizontal
ground displacement is highly narrowband [24,12]: the
dominant energy is concentrated in the narrow 0.05–0.32
Hz band, with a mean of 0.13 Hz for the peak-power
frequency [3,24], and this frequency (circular) will go
into Eq. 5. Consequently, the second and important
design criterion is merely the natural frequency of the
isolated building,
(6)
or an isolated period of 5.8 s. This may have seemed a
long period 15 years ago, but these days it is not an
uncommon period; in fact, in a recent state of the art on
the matter a division of the history of the period of
isolated buildings in 3 periods is presented: 1984-1994 2-
2.5 s, 1995-2004 2.5-4 s and 2005-2018 a freer “up to 10
s” [30]. Indeed, a new building with a natural frequency
close to Eq. 6 or 0.17 Hz is the Shimizu Corporation
Tokyo Headquarters (2012) which has a period of 5.4 s
[31]. Regarding a dominant frequency of ground
displacement, for which Morales [3,24] obtained 0.13
Hz, it is pointed out that these frequencies have been
obtained by other authors as well; Tian and Yang [32]
obtained a similar 0.10 Hz, although it was for only one
displacement record.
The aim could beg lower transmissibilities (e.g. 1/4),
which would imply lower periods, and also
displacements. However, it must be considered what was
discussed at the start of this Section, an “ideal” relative
transmissibility of zero or a very low one is as undesired
because that will be in confrontation with the isolation
Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved
concept: the relative displacement has to have certain
degree of freedom.
III. Results
The proposed solution to the LBD problem is tested in
the final time domain, with actual earthquakes and a
flexible superstructure. This implies an assessment and
validation of the two hypotheses of the method: that an
isolated building behaves as a rigid body, and more
importantly, that seismic horizontal displacement is a
narrow-band process. Thus, a sample building must be
defined; ideally, for clear comparison, the superstructure
should be identical to ones considered by similar works
where the displacement problem has been also solved by
passive means. Two of these previous papers were
reviewed in Section 2 [14,22]; indeed, both example
buildings are 5-story ones that have the same natural
period, as discussed; consequently, in this paper a 5-story
building with fixed natural frequency of 2 Hz is also
considered.
The isolation system is designed now according to the
goal and to both design criteria of the proposed method.
Thus, the dashpots or the equivalent damping coefficient,
and the isolation stiffness are defined by
(7a,b)
where it has been assumed, as in many base-isolation
papers, that the base mass is one-floor mass, or mb = ms =
m; now, in a few of these papers this value is set as
600.000 kg [2,3,33], and based on the previous idea
about not each work defining different parameters, this is
the value used here. Therefore, the linear isolation system
is defined or has been designed: base mass, damping and
stiffness.
The chosen set of (non-synthetized) earthquake inputs
includes most of the above-7 inland earthquakes in the
State of California of the last 50 years [24]; that is,
records of truly major events of a world region with very
high station density will be employed. These sizable
events are shown in Table 1 and it is noted that the
closest-to-epicenter station was used in each case;
moreover, the horizontal component with the highest
peak displacement was employed [34]; more importantly,
this component is shown in the Table for accuracy and
clarity. The Northridge event is included in the study
because it is a good example of near-fault records, and
for straight comparison with previous papers.
Table 1. Events considered and precise seismological
information regarding their records
Earthquake (year) Station Component
Landers (1992) Joshua Tree 90°
Cape Mendocino Cape Mendocino 0°
Northridge (1994) Sylmar Hospital 0°
(1992)
Hector Mine Amboy 0°
(1999)
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 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author

For the first earthquake, or the Landers event, the
ground and relative base displacements are shown in Fig.
4. Clearly, the isolator displacement levels are lower than
the input displacement levels; particularly, the peak
ground displacement is 15.7 cm whereas the peak base
displacement is 10.0 cm. Nonetheless, comparing both
peak displacements is physically meaningful only up to
some point, because the base displacement is relative
whereas the soil one is absolute; what gauges better the
success of the design procedure presented is to calculate
the relative transmissibility: the peaks transmissibility in
this case is 0.64. This must be compared first with the
frequency-domain goal here, of 0.5, and secondly with
previous results in which more complex passive control,
and active control, is used; these previous
transmissibilities were presented in the precedent Section,
and the results will be discussed and compared after all
events are considered. Nonetheless, for the first
significant earthquake it must be indicated that the results
in the actual time domain are very close to the theoretical
objective. Now, even though it is general and basic
knowledge that floor acceleration level in isolated
buildings is greatly reduced from the fixed case levels
[3,28,35], the superstructure absolute acceleration, a, is
shown in Fig. 5, because when tackling the isolator
displacement problem by any means or method, the
worry is if the acceleration (forces) increase from the
isolated levels [1,27,35]. It can be concluded that for this
seismic record, the peak value is well under 1 m/s2 which
is in the range of base-isolated absolute accelerations
[35,3].
The base and ground displacement for the next seism
(Cape Mendocino measured at the namesake station) is
presented in Fig. 6, and the peaks are 24.0 cm and 36.1
cm, respectively, for a Tr = 0.66, very near to the Landers
one of 0.64 and near to the frequency-domain aim of Tr
=1/2. The top-floor acceleration in this case is 2 m/s2
(peak), still in the range of isolated absolute
accelerations, or below the most demanding limit of 2.5
m/s2 suggested by Alhan and Oncu [35].

Fig. 4. Base and ground displacement (Landers at Joshua Tree)

Fig. 5. Top-floor absolute acceleration (Landers at Joshua Tree)

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 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author

Now, the Sylmar County Hospital record (Northridge)
has gotten much attention because of its pulse-type
motion that is associated to its near-source location
[1,36]. This type of signal causes concern because of the
resulting base displacements in isolated structures
[37,1,27]. Consequently, the design procedure will be
evaluated with this challenging record, considered so by
the four seismic isolation papers referred to just
previously. The base and ground displacements are
shown in Fig. 7, and the peaks are 30.7 cm and 32.6 cm,
respectively, for a transmissibility of 0.94 in this case.
This one is above the design objective of 0.5; however, a)
it is still positive as Tr < 1, and b) this record is
considered by several authors as very especial; indeed, in
two previous references lead-rubber and resilient-friction,
respectively, isolation was required to obtain
transmissibilities of 1.3 (which means amplification) [14]
and 0.97 [22], for a similar sample structure. The peak
superstructure acceleration in this case is shown in Table
2, it is also very close to 2 m/s2 as in the second case.

Fig. 6. Base and ground displacement (Cape Mendocino at Cape Mendocino)

Fig. 7. Base and ground displacement (Northridge at Sylmar Hospital)

Table 2. Peaks relative transmissibility and peak values of response variables ( =0.7)
Record ur [m] s [m] Tr a [m/s2]
Landers at Joshua Tree 0.100 0.157 0.64 0.64
Cape Mendocino at namesake stat. 0.240 0.361 0.66 2.01
Northridge at Sylmar Hospital 0.307 0.326 0.94 2.05
Hector Mine at Amboy 0.092 0.140 0.66 0.28

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 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author
The fourth case is Hector Mine at Amboy, for this the
results are presented on Table 2 only. The important and
impressive result is that Tr is 0.66, extremely close to the
Landers and Mendocino transmissibilities of 0.64 and
0.66; in this regard, it is highlighted that the many
records and stations for each significant event have not
been tried: the station closest to epicenter was chosen
right from the start. Finally, two points are added, 1) not
only the station but also the horizontal component has
been clearly shown, in Table 1 and for future
comparisons; this is not always the case as seismological
data in engineering papers is sometimes not complete, or
it is vague, even some errors have been lately found in
base-isolation papers [38]; and 2) lately also, other works
are starting to use the stronger and newer earthquakes
that are considered in this paper, for example Landers
and Hector Mine were also employed by Sari and Cicek
[39].
As admitted in the Method section, 70% of damping is
high and may not be easily feasible; therefore, 50% will
also be considered which is a level that has been reached
in some real buildings using high-damping bearings
(HDRB) plus dampers, as explained in the previous
section. Following the same design procedure, in this
case (=0.5) the factor in Eq. 5 is 1.52 (instead of 1.32)
and the natural frequency (Eq. 6) is 0.20 Hz, or a lower
(better) period of 5.1 s. For the same superstructure as
before, only transmissibility and acceleration new results
are shown in Table 3. It can be concluded that the
transmissibility increases in all cases, 11% for the
Northridge record, and in the 21-23% narrow range for
the other three seismic signals. This may be expected
because a) there is a deviation from the optimal or
original proposal, and b) the ground displacement power
spectral density does have secondary peaks [12,24] above
the main one which is at (as mean) 0.13 Hz; that is, there
is some level of resonance (Tr>1) at =0.5 above the
input design frequency (0.13 Hz); this resonance was
avoided in the optimal design, as it can be clearly
observed in Fig. 3. As also expected, the superstructure
accelerations in general decrease; this is because damping
increases these accelerations, as has been concluded by
several authors [1,22,27].
Table 3. Peaks relative transmissibility and peak top-floor
acceleration for =0.5
Record Tr a [m/s2]
Landers at Joshua Tree 0.79 0.55
Cape Mendocino at Cape 0.80 1.80
Northridge at Sylmar Hospital 1.04 1.85
Mendocino
Hector Mine at Amboy 0.80 0.32
Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved
IV. Discussion
For most of the above-7 California earthquakes of the
last 50 years, the optimal design procedure has achieved
base displacement levels under the ground displacement
level (time history). As a matter of fact, for 3 out of 4 of
the events studied (exception being the Sylmar record),
the peaks transmissibility Tr is actually well under one
(1); moreover, these three Tr are in the very limited range
of 0.64-0.66 which is not only remarkable by itself, but
also remarkably close to the frequency-domain or
theoretical objective of 0.5; this considering that there are
some assumptions in the spectral method proposed here.
These attained transmissibilities have to be compared
with Tr obtained in previous papers. As said in Section 2,
one of the first papers in which the problem is discussed
[28] presents a transmissibility of 1.23 with basic passive
control, and 0.8 with active control, for solely one (and
old) record; that is, amplification rather than isolation,
with basic isolation. There are more similar papers, to the
present one, regarding sample structure and ground
signals [14,22]; in fact, a very similar 5-story building is
used in these 2 references and in the present work:
identical fixed-base natural frequency of 2 Hz has been
used in the three proposals and the isolated one is the
same in the two references: 0.4 Hz. In this paper the
isolated natural frequency is 0.17 Hz as a result of the
optimization presented (Eq. 6), whose goal is to minimize
base motion. More importantly, the seismic input is the
prominent near-field Sylmar Hospital record, and Tr of
1.3 and 0.97 were attained with the NZ [14] and R-FBI
[22] systems, respectively, whereas the Tr = 0.94 here has
been achieved with simply the LRB system, where L
stands for laminated, not lead (Table 2).
Another paper that supports the importance of these
results is by Alhan and Oncu [35] which deals with
performance limits of isolated structures under
challenging near-source conditions, it reads: “the most
stringent performance target considered in this study
would be the combination of 40 cm (peak base
displacement) and 2.5 m/s2 (top-floor peak acceleration).
It is clearly seen from Figs. 6 and 7 that it would be very
difficult, if not impossible, to meet such a stringent
performance in the close vicinity of the fault”. It is
supportive because design presented indeed results in
those same variables being under those stringent limits in
the case of the most challenging Sylmar signal for which
31 cm and 2.05 m/s2 are obtained.
Moreover, a very interesting and valuable comparison
will be made with active control results. In a recent
paper, semi-active viscous dampers were proposed to
“limit base displacement while avoiding undesirable
amplification of the response of the non-isolated modes”
[17]; in this work, results were presented as maximum
base displacement per peak ground acceleration (m/g)
for the great Tohoku event and the value reached was
International Review of Civil Engineering, Vol. x, N. x
 F. A. Author, S. B. Author, T. C. Author
0.35 m/g for the most demanding signal of that
magnitude-9 earthquake. The passive-control translated
results of this work are 0.37 m/g (mean value) which is
very close to those semi-active control ones; it is noted
that for 2 of the events here, the value is basically the
mean: 0.36 (Landers) and 0.37 m/g (Northridge). Apart
from the known economic disadvantage of active control,
a recent concern in civil engineering is that power supply
is not reliable before, during and after large earthquakes
and their aftershocks [40].
As previously discussed in sections 2 and 3, the
proposed damping may be too high; in fact, results were
presented also for a lower damping of =0.5, and the
transmissibilities were still below 1 for all records except
for, expectedly, the Sylmar one; mean value of 0.8 (20%
of isolation). For the Sylmar record Tr=1, which means
no isolation nor amplification. Nonetheless, high
damping is what it takes to greatly reduce isolator
displacement if the control is to be kept within simple and
economical passive control; this fact, that there is no
other solution within basic isolation, is another result of
this investigation, where by basic and simple isolation no
addition of inertial devices is meant. In this regard, it has
been quite recently shown that with TMDs and inerters,
good displacement results can be obtained without
relying purely on damping [7,9], works in which the
damping factor is 0.3.
Finally, the quite favorable time-domain results
validate the hypotheses of the optimization proposed; the
main validated assumption is the narrowbandness of
seismic horizontal ground displacement.
V. Conclusion
It has been shown that the problematic base
displacements in seismic isolation can be attenuated by
adequately designing the isolation layer. In other words,
it was demonstrated that passive control alone can control
the important seismic response variables; especially, the
isolator displacement. Specifically, it has been proven
that in most of the responses analyzed, of a building
model whose isolation system was designed according to
the Method, the transmissibilities are quite close to 0.65,
which is, isolator to ground displacement ratio; in
addition, the base displacements in all cases are under
0.31 m, which is a level under the strictest limit of 0.4 m
established by Alhan and Oncu [35]. The positive
passive-control results were compared to active-control
ones and the outcome was favorable.
Future work can use this idea of one predominant
seismic frequency, in other and current proposals to
reduce the base displacement in isolated structures. As
examples of this type of subsequent work is the
application of the idea along with additional inertial
devices [7,9]..
Acknowledgement: Grant number C-022-2021-2 from
UPC is appreciated.
Copyright © 2010 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved
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Authors’ information
1 Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas; cesar.moralesv@upc.pe
César Morales received a Cum
Laude mechanical engineering
degree from Universidad Simón
Bolívar (USB), Caracas, 1991, and
M.Sc. (1995, 23 months of study)
and Ph.D. (1997, 20 months of
work) degrees in engineering
mechanics from Virginia Tech, both
under the advice of L. Meirovitch. In
1992, he joined the Departamento de
Mecánica at USB as Professor
Instructor, by 2005 he became Full
Professor; later he has worked at UTec F. Sta. María, Chile, and
currently at U. Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas. He has published,
mainly as sole author, in truly diverse areas, from modal analysis to
earthquake engineering, from theoretical vibrations to structural
stability, and from sport science to electric circuits.
International Review of Civil Engineering, Vol. x, N. x