What is it about?
Base isolation is an effective device easy to fix to a building to reduce the damages inflicted on buildings and its occupants during earthquakes. The Elliptical Rolling Rod (ERR) isolation device is a simple self-centering roller place beneath the building that will allow a small movement laterally during the tremors especially those emanating from sites near to fault lines. This flexibility allows the forces transmitted to the buildings and its occupants to be considerably reduced. It is simple, economical, easy to install and easy to maintain.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Observations from past earthquake history show that conventional base isolation devices, though being effective in general, has its vulnerabilities in sites that are near to fault lines. Such proximity to fault lines have resulted in large isolator displacements surpassing its maximum design displacement capacity which ultimately results in the failure of the base isolation system. With judicious configuration of Elliptical Rolling Rod (ERR) isolation device such damages can be averted with a great degree of confidence.
Perspectives
Roller-type isolation systems have in general not been used widely. The benefit highlighted in the paper using Elliptical Rolling Rod (ERR) isolation system is an eye-opener especially considering its effectiveness in sites prone to damaging tremors from close fault lines. Investigation of appropriate materials and manufacturing process will go a way long in pushing this concept to reality.
Naseef Ummer
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Performance of bi-directional elliptical rolling rods for base isolation of buildings under near-fault earthquakes, Advances in Structural Engineering, August 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1369433217726896.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
