The Latest Edition of the Chapter X in the Seismic Code of Armenia Regarding Seismic Isolation of Buildings and Structures

What is it about?

The National Seismic Code of Armenia was in force since 1994. It contained some provisions regarding the seismic isolation of buildings. However, they were not sufficiently detailed, and this caused barriers for further development of seismic isolation systems in Armenia. Elaboration of a separate chapter dedicated to the seismic isolation of buildings was needed. It was only in 2004 that the works on revision and preparation of the new edition of the National Seismic Code started. This became a good opportunity for addressing the issue again. Moreover, the extensive implementation of seismic isolation technologies especially by the private companies provided a good basis for the inclusion of a separate chapter on seismic isolation of buildings in the mentioned new edition of the Code. The proposal was finally accepted by the RA Ministry of Urban Development and for the first time in the history of development of Seismic Codes in Armenia a Chapter 10 “Seismic isolation of buildings and structures” was included in the Armenian National Seismic Code RABC II-6.02-2006 [1] and was adopted by the Government of Armenia in 2006. The main provisions of this Chapter 10, which consisted of five parts, were described by the author earlier in [2]. Later, when the “Map of Seismic Zonation of the RA Territory” was revised, there was a need to also revise the mentioned Code in force including the Chapter 10. This work started in 2019. The author of this paper is the co-author of the revised Code as a whole. However, together with participating in writing of several parts of the Code he, particularly, prepared the latest edition of the Chapter X named “Buildings and Structures with Base isolation Systems”. The works on the revised Code were accomplished in 2020.

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