Base Isolation: Linear Theory and Design James M. Kelly, M.EERI ‘The idea that a building can be uncoupled from the damaging effects of the ground movement produced by a strong earthquake has appealed to inventors and engineers for more than a century. Many ingenious devices have been pro- posed to achieve this result, but very few have been implemented and the concept, now referred to as base isolation or seismic isolation has yet to be generally accepted by the engineering profession. Although most of the proposed systems are unacceptably complicated, in recent years a few practical systems have been developed and implemented. While some of these systems have been tested on large-scale shaking tables, none have to date been tested as-built by a strong earth tremor. The shake table testing and related static testing of full-scale com- ponents such as isolation bearings, however, has led to a certain degree of accep- tance by the profession and it is possible that the number of practical implemen- tations of base isolation will increase quite dramatically in the next few years. ‘This paper describes recent implementations of base isolation and describes an approximate linear theory of isolation which can be used for the design of base isolation systems that use multilayer elastomeric isolators. INTRODUCTION A very basic problem in the earthquake design of low- to mediumerise buildings is that ‘their fundamental frequency of vibration is in the range of frequencies where earthquake energy is strongest. This means that the building acts as an amplifier of the ground vibra tions and the accelerations experienced at each floor level increase to the top. This also ‘causes stresses in the frame and interstory drifts which may result in damage to the columns between floors. ‘The amplified accelerations at each floor act on the contents and occupants of the floor and can eause severe damage to these contents even when no damage occurs to the structure itself. An example of this is a telephone exchange in the Sylmar area of Cali- fornia in which the entire stock of internal equipment was destroyed during the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, while the damage to the building was minor. The degree of amplification can be reduced by making the building more rigid since a completely rigid building can experience an acceleration no greater than the ground acceleration, but this is fan expensive approach that cannot be exactly realized in practice, and in any case the ground arcelerations alone could be high enough to damage the contents of the building even if unamplified (RAK) Department of Civil Engineering, Univesity of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA ‘ofarhguake Specs, Wo. 6 No.2 19024 J.M. Kelly The goal should be to reduce the accelerations in buildings to below the level of the ground accelerations, and to do this the building must be flexible, Flexibility in a structural frame can cause problems: windows may fall out in the wind, partition walls may erack, floors may vibrate under foot. In a low- or medium-rise building the necessary flexibility can ‘only be achieved at the foundation level by the use of base isolation, Recent developments in rubber technology have made the idea of base isolation a prac- tical reality. Rubber bearings are now used almost everywhere as thermal expansion bear- ings for bridges, replacing mechanical roller or rocker bearings, which are attacked by salt, have a tendency to lock-up, and are known to perform badly in earthquakes. The rubber bearings which now replace them are inexpensive, durable and reliable, some now having been in use for over twenty-five years (1). Many buildings in Europe and the United King- dom have been built on rubber bearings to isolate them from vibrations from underground railways and these bearings have performed well over substantial periods of time, The seismic isolation bearings that make base isolation a practical possibility are a development of this type of bearing. They are manufactured in the same way. The differences are in the proportions of rubber and steel and in the deformations for which they are designed. Rubber bearings offer the simplest method of isolation and are relatively easy to manufacture. ‘The bearings are made by vuleanization bonding of sheets of rubber to thin steal reinforcing plates. The bearings are very stiff in the vertical direction and are very flexible in the horizontal direction, Their action under seismic loading is to isolate the build- ing from the horizontal components of the earthquake ground movement, while the vertical components are transmitted through to the structure relatively unchanged. Vertical accelerations are not normally a problem for most buildings. ‘These bearings will in addition have the effec of isolating the building from high-frequency vertical vibrations that are pro- duced by underground railways and local traffic. A building on rubber bearings will be simultaneously protected from unwanted vibration and from earthquake attack. Rubber bearings are suitable for buildings that are rigid and for masonry or reinforced concrete con- struction of up to seven stories. For this sort of building, uplift on the bearings will not cecur and wind load will be unimportant. ‘The first use of rubber for earthquake protection was in an elementary school in Skopje, Yugoslavia [2]. ‘The building is a three-story structure in concrete and was com- pleted in 1969. It rests on large blocks of natural rubber. In contrast with more recent rubber bearings, these blocks are completely unreinforced so that the weight of the building causes them to bulge sideways. ‘The vertical stiffness of the system is about the same as the horizontal so that the building will bounce and rock backwards and forwards in an earth- quake, These bearings were designed at a time when the technology for reinforcing rubber blocks with steel plates, as in bridge bearings, was not so highly developed nor so widely known and it is unlikely that this approach will be used again ‘The mechanics of isolation bearings is now very well understood and the design of a system for a building at a specific site is a straightforward task. When a building is analyzed on rubber bearings for earthquake attack, itis usual to model the combined system by a linear viseously damped model. If this model is used, very simple solutions will result, If the fixed-base fundamental frequeney of the building is much higher than that of the iso- lated system, say 3 Hz as compared to 0.5 Hz for the isolated case, the first mode of the iso- lated building is mainly a rigid body mode with nearly all of the deformation occurring in the rubber bearings. ‘The second mode has a frequeney about 50% to 100% above the frst fixed-base frequency. ‘The seismic input to the structure can be treated as an equivalent lateral load which is proportional to the rigid body mode. Since it is a characteristic of aBase Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 225 linear vibrating system that all modes are mutually orthogonal, all modes higher than the first will be orthogonal to the input motion, so that if there are high energies in the earth- quake ground movement at the frequencies of these higher modes, this energy cannot be transmitted into the building. ‘Thus, the isolation system works not by absorbing these energies but by deflecting them. This is an attractive feature of the simple rubber isolation system. If other elements are added for the purpose of increasing the damping or controlling displacement, this simple result: no longer holds, Accelerations can then be induced in the higher modes and will produce streses in the higher levels of the building and cause accelera- tions in equipment items and other contents of the building. A simple form of rubber bearing isolation system was used for a three-story school in the small town of Lambesc near Marseilles in France [3]. The school building had originally been designed to be built of prefabricated concrete but the seismic code for the region was changed before construction began. The system could not have satisfied the new seismic requirements without a substantial increase in cost. ‘The use of the isolators allowed the sys> tem to satisfy the new code and saved the community a great deal of money. In this build- ing there are no wind restraints or additional elements to enhance the damping and the period of the building as isolated is around 1.7 seconds, Since this school was completed, three houses have been built in the neighbor munity of Saint-Martin de Castillon. ‘The houses are of masonry construction, have tile roofs and are supported on natural rubber isolators. An isolation system of this kind has also been designed for a three-story building in Toulon for the French Navy |). This build- ing is used for the storage of radioactive waste. No wind restraints or damping devices are used in this system since the displacements under wind load and earthquake action are likely to be very small Experimental work on the response of rubber-isolated systems carried out on the shak- ing table at the Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, has included testing of an isolation system using rubber, but with a failsafe system [3] Shake table tests also included an isolation system for a large power plant. component [6] and the effect of various isolation systems, all of which incorporated damping devices, on the response of light secondary equipment {7, 8]. These results show that if rubber beatings are used with no add-on elements, the orthogonality of the higher modes to the input has the effect of greatly reducing the response of the equipment as compared with conventional con- struction. ‘The degree of protection afforded the light equipment is superior to that provided for the building itself, However, when other elements are added to provide additional damp- they inevitably cause high-frequency response and increased accelerations in the equip- n In New Zealand, a number of isolation concepts have been applied to highway bridges, railway bridges and to three buildings. One of the buildings, a government office building in Wellington, uses as isolators laminated natural rubber bearings each of which has a eylindri- cal plug of lead in a central hole. This system was developed in the late 1970's 9], since it was felt that the intrinsic damping in the rubber compounds available in Australasia at that time was inadequate to control the displacements of the isolation system. ‘The lead plug pro- duces a substantial increase in damping, from approximately 3% of critical damping in the available rubber to about 10-15%, and also increases resistance to wind loading. ‘The building is four stories high and has a reinforced concrete frame. A twelvestory building has been constructed in Auckland, New Zealand, on a base iso- lation system called the sleeved pile system (10). This uses 12 m long bearing piles within cylindrical sleeves, allowing a certain amount of lateral movement, in this case 150 mm. {about 6 inches). The isolation period on the piles is 4 seconds, and resistance to wind26 1M. Kelly loading would be inadequate with this system alone. In addition the damping would be very low. To improve the behavior of the system, energy absorbing devices in the form of mild steel tapered plate beams are included in the structure and these lower the period to around 2 seconds. Another building using the sleoved-pile system and incorporating lead extrusion dampers is under construction in Wellington. The building is ten stories in height and is a reinforced concrete eross-braced structure that will serve as the city’s police station ‘The sleeved-pile concept is similar to the soft first story design concept but without the risk of collapse due to excessive first story lateral deflections. If the structure should exceed the design lateral displacements, the sleeve itself will control the displacement, providing a fail safe action for the system. Although piles are an expensive foundation system they must be used if soil conditions make the use of footings unacceptable, When circumstances dictate the use of piles it may be cost effective to use the sleeved-pile concept and provide a substan- tial reduction in the lateral force requirements for the superstructure, Isolation systems have been proposed in which the isolation mechanism is purely sliding friction, ‘These are the simplest isolation systems of all, and there has been a large amount of theoretical analysis of sliding systems [11, 12] but very little experimental work and no large-scale shaking table tests, The idea of a sliding joint as an isolation system is an attrac- tive one for low-cost housing since it can be constructed using no more complicated technol ay of no more skilled labor than needed for a conventional building. For this reason, it has bbeen developed for housing in China. It was observed after the Tang Shan earthquake of 1976 that masonry block buildings in which the reinforcement was not carried through to the foundation performed better than buildings in which it did. In a structure which per- formed well in the earthquake a horizontal crack was observed at the foot of the wall as well as a residual displacement of about 6 em. As a result of these observations, the approach adopted in China is a separation layer under the floor beams above a wall foundation. A thin layer of specially sereened sand is laid on the sliding surface and the building constructed on this. Since low-rise concrete block or masonry buildings are very stiff, heavy structures, they are very susceptible to earthquake damage and can be very dangerous, ‘The presence of the sliding layer allows a degree of flexibility which reduces the seismic risk, Four demonstration buildings have been built in China using this technique. Three of these are one-story brick houses and one a four-story brick dormitory in Beijing for the Strong Motion Observatory Center [13) ‘A nuclear power plant at Koeberg, South Africa, has been built on an isolation system by the French nuclear construction company Framatome (14). This company supplies a standard power plant designed for a seismic input of 0.2g peak acceleration. For a site where the design requirements exceed this, as at Koeberg, the power plant is built on an iso- Tation system which will reduce the accelerations experienced by the structure and com- ponents to below the 0.2g level. ‘The French nuclear isolation system uses laminated neoprene bridge bearings with lead bronze-stainless steel slip plates on top of each bearing The neoprene bearings act as conventional isolators for small earthquakes but cannot accomodate very large displacements since they have only a few layers of elastomer. If a large earthquake should occur, sliding will take place on the slip plates. ‘These have been designed to have a friction cooficent of 0.2 and to maintain this for the lifetime of the plant. ‘The construction costs for this system are very high but are justified in that it allows ‘ standardized plant to be built at any site with no additional costs for redesign, strength ing and requalifcation of components. The Koeberg plant began commercial operation in 1986. Neoprene pads without slip plates are also used under the the reactor buildings of a four-unit nuclear power plant at Cruas-Meysse in the Ithéne Valley (15). ‘The pads are simi lar to standard neoprene bridge bearing pads. An isolation system is used for this site sinceBase Isolation: Linear Theory and Design Ea there is probability of shallow earthquakes of low magnitude occurring close to the site producing higher accelerations and high-frequency motion. The fixed-base frequency of the reactor buildings is roughly 4.5 Hz and corresponds to the peak frequency of the anticipated spectrum. With the pads the natural frequency is reduced to 1 Hz which significantly reduces forces on the structure and on the internal equipment. In recent years there has been a great interest in isolation in Japan, Several Japanese construction companies have built demonstration buildings on isolation systems. Experience with the buildings and their highly favorable performance in earthquakes has led to the con- struction of many other buildings as commercial projects. ‘There are now at least twenty completed base isolated buildings in Japan with many others under construction or in the design phase. A review of the status of base isolation in Japan up to 1988 is given in (16) Most Japanese isolation systems involve natural rubber multilayer bearings usually with the addition of damping enhancing components. ‘The use of high damping rubber bearings has been explored through their installation, without additional damping devices, in an experi ‘mental building [17] ‘The first base-isolated building in the United States was the Foothill Communities Low and Justice Center located in the municipality of Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County. The building is four stories high with a full basement and sub-basement for the isolation system. The building sits on 98 isolators which are multilayer natural rubber bear- ings reinforced with steel plates. ‘The superstructure of the building has a structural steel frame stiffened by braced frames in some bays. The building is 20 kilometers from the San Andreas fault and it is designed for the maximum credible earthquake for that site, an 8.3 Richter magnitude earthquake. ‘The rubber from which the isolators ore made is a highly filled natural rubber with mechanical properties that make it ideal for a base isolation system. ‘The shear stiffness of this rubber is high for small strains but decreases by a factor of about four or five as the strain increases, reaching ® minimum value ata shear strain of 50%, For strains greater than 100% the stiffness begins to increase again. ‘Thus for small loading caused by wind oF low-intensity seismic loading the system has high stiffness and short period and as the load intensity increases the stiffness drops. For very high load, say above the maximum credible carthquake, the stiffness increases again providing a failsafe action. The damping follows the same pattern but less dramatically, decreasing from an initial value of 20% to a minimum of 10% and then increasing again. In the design of the system the minimom ‘values of stiffness and damping are assumed and the response is taken to be linear. The high initial stifiness is invoked only for wind load design and the large strain response only for fail-safe action Although base isolation has been proposed and used for new construction, the concept is readily applied to the rehabilitation of older buildings of architectural and historic merit, that presently do not comply with building codes. The number of unreinforced masonry buildings in California is estimated to be as great as 100,000. Many of these buildings will bbe demolished rather than strengthened due to the problems associated with conventional procedures which involve adding new structural elements such as shear walls, internal frames, or bracing, A rehabilitation scheme using base isolation has been carried out for a ninety-two year ‘old building in Salt Lake City. ‘The building is an unreinforced brick and sandstone struc- ture, is badly weathered and its strength has deteriorated substantially. It is located close to an active fault and has been damaged by past earthquakes. Base isolation is the latest of several rehabilitation schemes that have been considered for the building. Conventional seismic strengthening designs involving extensive use of shoterete walls and other228 JM. Kelly strengthening methods have been considered, but the base isolation reduces the need for such strengthening measures by decreasing the seismic loads to the building (18) LINEAR THEORY OF SEISMIC ISOLATION ‘An elementary analysis for the purpose of gaining insight into the behavior of isolated buildings ean be developed using a simple linear two-degrecof-freedom model with linear springs and linear viscous damping. Since most isolation systems are intrinsically non-linear this analysis will be only approximate for such systems, and the effective stiffness and damp- ing will have to be estimated by some equivalent linearization process. ‘The parameters of the model are shown in Figure 1. Kc m, _| a, _/ Ky,.Cy, | om 3 Figure 1 - Parameters of Two Degree-of-Freedom Isolated Used in Analysis ‘The absolute equations of motion are: mii = —ofi — iy) - Klu-wy) a and mii + my ti, = —ey(tiy — tig) — ky(uy (2) Its convenient to work with relative displacements: @ and: (a)Base Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 228 in terms of which the equations of motion become: miytmi, tei thy =—miy ©) and: (1m + my) iy +m, + ogy + ky vy = (omy + ily © It is easy to soe that if the relative motion between the structure and the base, expressed by ‘Yq is suppressed, the second equation becomes the single-degree-o-freedom equation: Mi tai thy =—Miy ” ‘whore M is the total weight of the building plus that of the slab. If v, is suppressed, the first equation becomes the usual equation for a fixed-base single-degreeof-freedom system. ‘This two-degree-of-freedom system of equations ean be solved directly or through modal decomposition. A modal analysis provides insight into the response of isolated systems and the results will be applicable to more elaborate models. To develop the modes, frequencies and participation factors of the system, we write the equations in the matrix form: @) x = [E] an c= [2 « wy se [Ef ose [fh a ate c= at ee cnet magnitude 107%; iii) & = —2— and ) 2ma, ‘The undamped natural modes of the system #* = (4f,42)" ; n= equations: are of the same order of magnitude as ¢ 2 are given by the two c B+ BOE + (— 70H) 6? = 0 (98) a) OE + (ws + wt) oP (9b) where w, is the frequency of the mode and 7 = = is a mass ratio, less than one. ti the frequency of the mode and -y = Zt to, less thi ‘The characteristic equation for w, is: (1 aed — (WF + afd + wha? ° (10)20 ~ JM. Kelly The lower of the two roots 4 and uy of this equation will be denoted by ux which represents the shifted isolation frequency, and the higher root by uy which represents the structural frequency modified by the presence of the isolation system, ‘The exact roots are given by: ft fg ays (ug uge aa —nyut ad)!” 3 Heat af) ((u2-+ of — 40 —ay tag)! } () When we account for the fact that << 4 and rewrite the radical inthe form (uo? ( +o gt) 0) PF and expand this by binomial serie, we obtain, tothe same oder of the results: ofa oit aot a and on In many cates it may be suicently accurate to take as approximations fore , uf the Bes terms oS (18) (9) a ‘Thin indicates that the isolation frequency is oly lightly changed hy flexibility inthe struc cate (he change is of order dhl he stractral frequency i signifeatly increased by the tdition ofthe base mass. ‘The separtion between the lation frequency and the Bxel- base structural frequency is increased in the combining ofthe two elements ‘The mode shape ¢! is given by: (af? + of) eh + (ata! a7) — af" b) + (w2 — wo) 63 = 0 (7b) and, retaining terms of order € and setting of = 1, we ge rif - {shar} (8) ‘To the same order of ¢, we find that e- (09) ' 2 pako93] ‘These are sketched in Figure 2 and show that " is approximately a rigid structure mode, whereas ¢* involves both structural deformation and isolation system deformation. TheBase Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 231 displacement of the top of the structure is of the same order as the base displacement, but ‘opposite in direction. Figure 2 - Mode Shapes of Two Degree-of-Freedom Isolated System With these two modes, #t and ¢, we can write the relative displacements vp and v, in the form: WH ude + ade (20) aad W= Ud +028) (21) nd reduce the basic matrix equation to the two equations G+ 2h Hay + of gr (22) and yt Dal Ady tal = hail (23) where we have implicitly assumed that the damping in the system is light enough to allow us to retain the orthogonality of the modes. In these equations, Ly and Ly are the participation factors for the two modes. ‘These are given by oe (a) orm 6 ‘The computation of Ly involves the following matrix multiplications: usuntis Pealfeaeom *a JM. Kelly where: iM m] ft wet. ft] ffeseancene Retaining only terms to order ¢, we have nate (9) For La, the same computations give: 1M, -M+ma en where: M;=M+2ma+a%m and: 4 ¢ a=-Fh-a-ad Since = fp, LaMy =M(1—a}e and My aaa, l= (23) ‘This result and that for the shifted frequencies reveal the basic reason why an isolation sys- ‘tem works. The participation factor for the second mode, which is the mode that involves structural deformation, is of order « and if the original frequencies 1, ,u, are well separated, this could be very small. In addition, the frequency of this mode is shifted to a higher value than the original fixed-base frequency and if the earthquake input has large spectral accelers- tions at the original structural frequency, shifting it higher could shift it out of the range of strong earthquake motion. However, since the participation factor for this mode is very small, this mode is orthogonal to the earthquake input characterized by M'rij,. This means that even if the earthquake does have energy at this frequency, the ground motion will not be transmitted into the structure. ‘This is the real effectiveness of a seismic isolation system. It does not absorb energy; it deflects energy through this property of orthogonality. Buergy absorption is of course an important part of the behavior of an isolation system and in this simple model we have represented it by linear viscous damping and we have assumed that the uncoupled equations still hold. ‘The question now arises as to how to select, the modal damping factors 8,6. In this case, we are in the unusual postion of being able to make very good estimates in each element when treated separately. The isolation system, if it is a laminated rubber system, will provide a degree of damping that is in the range of 5-10% of critical damping. The structure will have somewhat less, probably of the order of 2%. In conventional structural analysis it is generally assumed that the damping in a struc- tare will be about 5% of eritical damping, but this figure is used to reflect the fact that some degree of damage is assumed in the design. In a baseisolated building the aim is to reduce the forces experienced by the structure to such a level that no damage to the structure or to nonstructural elements such as partitions will occur and thus a lower estimate is appropriate. In any discretized structural dynamics problem, the equations of motion can be written in the form: ME +02 4+Kx=P (29) where P is the load vector. Multiplying by % and summing over all components gives: SME +57 OX 437 Kx = iTP (30)Base Isolation: Linear Theory and Design SS~—~—~—~SsSCSCSC~iD which ean be interpreted as: tke +PB)-W-D (sn) where KE.= 57M is the kinetic energy; PE.=bxKx the potential energy: Wex'P the rate of external work; and Daxtox is the energy dissipated by the system. . ‘The modal representation of this equation using x = 34,4, where N is the order of the sys a tem, is Gy + 20, By dy + « where the #* are given by —aiM = Kg ‘The global quantities take the form: . (32) (33) (34) W=SDpods HME" = ban (36) t= mn On the other hand, the quantity x7 Cx is, in terms of ¢", EB intadn (7 where Ag, = 6" C9". To preserve the orthogonality properties ofthe modal representation we need to replace &™ CX above by the single summation term J) 2u,8,42, and the problem is then to select , knowing ,, 4, to minimize the difference between: D=TLam dn Amn (38)234 JM. Kelly and D= 52,843 ) Is can be shown that the optimum choice of By is given by Bu, f= 9" CH (40) ‘The corresponding terms in the simple isolation model are: aut ay = ee (1) oh MM’ ¢" and when we utilize the previous results for M; and Mp, we find thet: Dal BY = Bay A (1 — 276) (2) and BBA a2 ) Using the result that: of = a(t — 79" i) we have p= BUR 279 gg 84g 8) 7) 2 (48) . athe mo oo aaa" which shows that the structural damping is increased by the damping in the bearings to the order of ¢*; the product of 8 and ¢* may be a significant addition to the term 8, and could be important if f, is very small. This shows that high damping in the rubber bearings can contribute significant damping to the structural mode. With these results for Ly, La, Bt, Bz, we are able to estimate the response of the system, to specific earthquake inputs. Let us consider first the response to sinusoidal input and look at the amplification factor defined by the magnitude of the ratio of relative displacement to ground displacement. We denote: =e}, AH anh te and set i, = wage in the modal equations. We then have Le Lye — + f (wf? a4) + ide (af =w2) + ide way Ae : (ss)Base Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 235 2 lw (of a?) + ida upy Although these expressions can be written out as algebra functions of w without imaginary part, itis more instructive to look at the form that they take for specific values of w. We will be interested in three frequencies, namely the fixed-base structure frequency «, and the ‘wo isolated frequencies af, wi. When w = ux, we have: bbe Nel rec? (60) i2ag"a 7 (uff) +iaufatpy Retaining terms to the frst order in ¢ this gives: aE “ For the amplification of base motion we have: aé + ac9tie (s2) which to the same order in ¢ is Aye 172 _ = iting (53) 2ai—$rq 7A? When w = wi! we find by the same manipulations that: (-a-o$ (54) and Aywia hte (55) 2 ear [At the fixed-base frequency, the amplification factor A, is actually of order € and Ay is of fonder 1. These three sets of results are indicated in the following table @ x A Fised-Base Structure Isolated; Base : _ gly 3% TWh a] nod oq) : ow oft ‘The exact expressions for all values of w are: ae (uf — os + Aeutat 208 (0) (aA aa ARO A Haase A26 1M. Kelly and: apne] Ooi nhaatet —att (sn) (oa) + 4h FOP (ag uF) + an"arp ‘These expressions have been evaluated for a few choices of the parameters ~,€, 8, A, and the results are shown in the Pigure 3. 100 —— AMPLIFICATION FACTOR A, As [BASE AND FLOOR DSPLACELENT 109 0 no Simos bana 50 oo rr) zo a FREQUENCY RATIO (2s oa 00 Figure 3 - Amplification Factors of Two Degree-of-Preedom Subjected to Sinsoidal ExcitationBase Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 237 If the time history of the ground motion ii(t) is known, then the modal components x(t), ao(t) can be computed from: (58) and ‘sin wy rd (59) and estimates of the maximum values of q, and ag are given by Var Inax = En Sp (+ 86) (60) and: Ve Imae = LaSp (82) (61) where Sp(w,8) is the displacement response spectrum for the ground motion iig(t) at fre- quency « and damping factor 8. If for purposes of design we are given a design spectrum which is generally a damped acceleration response spectrum (e.g., Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulatory Guide 18), the predicted relative displacement maxima will be: Ve Tense = {lout + (coma) (62) and: Vy Den {ee mad” + (6F ona} (63) where now: imax = La S84 (48 BS) and: amex = La Salat BE) with $4(4,9) the acleration design spectrum at wand B. ‘Thus: Aa-a-yorre SH | (64) Vv br and I. baw = [esses esol 8 (65)Be 1M. Kelly Many design spectra are approximately constant velocity spectra and in such cases the values of S for different frequencies, neglecting variations due to damping, are related by: Sq(w, 8) = wSy (66) where Sy is a constant, For such design spectra we have: lea = (176? “h(a =ayg? Ef sy = BS (67) a at and: (68) ‘The design base shear coefficient C, is defined by: kyve (69) ‘and when unisolated this is: ©, = wu AS) = Sa, A) (70) When isolated this becomes cynup| “Ame Hla), eh aes ow “ 5 Recalling that a? =uf(1—9¢ and uft= LET), ye obtain (1=r9°SH0i,.) , -0-vePsaer 2 Fe +79 =F j Although the second term is multiplied by @, it can be of the same order as the first term. ‘This will be the case if the spectrum is a constant displacement spectrum. Ifthe spec- trum is either constant velocity or constant acceleration, the socond term is negligible. These results indicate that for small ¢ and a typical design spectrum, the isolation system can be designed at least in the initial phase for a relative base displacement Sp(1,,A4) and the building for a base shear coefficient of S4(W, 8). The reduction in base shear as compared with a fxed-base structure where C,=Sy(4, ,) is given by’ {stot + 20a 20stBase Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 239 Saltte Bo) Sal Ba) hie for constant voy speram s So sougy of erie, and hs underestimate th edaton sic willing gi th EQUIVALENT LATERAL FORCE-RESPONSE SPECTRA. DESIGN TECHNIQUE ‘The foregoing two-degree-oF-freedom analysis of the simple linear model can be applied to the case of a building with several stories. The structural system of this building may be represented by a mass matrix M, a damping matrix C, and stiffness matrix K. Ifthe struc ture were conventionally based, the relative displacement u of each degree of freedom with respect to the ground would be given by Mii +Ca+Ku=—Mri, (74) where risa vector that couples each degree of freedom to the ground motion. When this structural model is superposed on a base isolation system with base mass ms, stiffness ky, and damping e}, this equation is replaced by: M¥ +04 +Kv=—Mr(i, +¥) (75) ‘where vy is the relative displacement of the base slab to the ground, The overall equation of motion for the combined building and base slab is: ETM + rig + ii) + Mali, +H) +e iy have (76) Which ean be written in the form: TTMY + (M4My) iy Hoyiy thew = (M+ Mig (m In this equation we have identified r™ Mr as the total mass of the building so that M-+My, is the total mass carried on the isolation system. The matrix form of these equations is: MV 4OV4K'v =—Mri, (78) | where! [M+M, x7 Mr M and: with: v-[tl ‘The natural modes of the fxed-base structure are assumed known and denoted by ¢ where i=1toN, In terms of these, the displacement of each degree of freedom of the structure can bbe represented as:240 1M. Kelly x vo3ae (79) ‘The natural frequencies w? are given by: M@*ul=K¢" (80) and we assume that 4°08" =0 ifn #m, ‘The matrix equations of motion reduce to the N-+1 equations: SoeTM gi +(M + Ma) Fede then (M+M,)i, (s1) and +24 Aa +ura=-L(i +i), in1 to N (#2) where Ly are the participation factors of the fixed-base modes, ie "Mr oMé ‘The fixed-base modal masses are: M = 6"Me (83) and we can write these equations in the form: {8 h wo} Sea Eth HABA Hale, (s4) and Livy +4 +2404 +4%q=-Li, , i=l tN (85) ‘The corresponding equations for the single-degree-f-freedom model on the base slab are Tig ty +e Bin tay (68) and: Heth, +20, 8,y, + oly, ig (87) I we retain only one mode of the fixed-base structure, we can make the equations correspond by replacing vy in the elementary analysis by L vy tig by L, i, and 7 atm by: LEM, 7° My If this is done, q, will be given by the solution for v, ‘The basic results for the single-degree-of-freedom structure, namely that: 1 S4( Bs) (68) Ve Yims =Base Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 2a aud c- {site 1A) +e — SH sof ro) are replaced as fllows, ‘The maximum relative base displacement i given by: 1, ¥y bax = Epa Sales» BA) (0) of and, since L; appears on both sides, the elementary result is unchanged, To obtain the base shear we have: Susi o a where now w, Bf are calculated using the earlier transformations. ‘The relative displacement vector v is given by: vaas! (2) and the inertial force on each element, neglecting damping contributions, is: F=Kv=qK¢!=—M¢'u? (03) ‘The total horizontal force on the superstructure is: rTP =—quefl;M, (94) and this is in turn expressed in terms of the base shear coefficient C, through CM=rF (95) Thus LM: face titstet. a ow foe Su Ay) + (a OLE SA(o a} LEM: [2 226%" pt) Tr Silo Aa) + (1a)? SH! 6") (06) where: LEM, wf Mem ST UF In the standard equivalent lateral force procedure, the building considered as a fixed- base structure is designed to resist the lateral seismic base shear V given by V =C,W, where W is the total weight. The value of C, is derived from a formula such as: L2A,S (97) are with A, a code-specified acceleration, S a factor to represent soil type, T the period of the building and R a ductility factor. Alternatively, the value of C, ean be derived from a.22 spectrum. The lateral seismic shear force F, at any level denoted by x is given by: Fp=,¥ (08) where: We oy, = DWih} In this formula the terms W;, Wy are the weights of levele i and x, hy, hy the heights of levels {and x, and j an exponent which is taken to be 1 if the period is 0.5 seconds or less and 2 if it is 25 seconds or more. This reflects the fact that a stiff, low building will respond predominantly in shear with a roughly linear first mode and a tall, lexible building in bend- ing with a quadratic first mode. The exponent j may be selected by linear interpolation between Land 2, ‘The seismic shear force at any level x is calculated from: N Ve= dF (99) For an isolated building the distribution of shear force should be given by the shape of the first isolated mode, namely {1,¢L,4"}", or, if we neglect the ¢ terms, the distribution should be uniform, Then: (100) and and Va BGyV (102) Thus, in design we estimate ©, from the design spectrum and design the superstructure at each level for a shear force equivalent to C, times the weight above. If appropriate, the duc- tility factor R can then be taken into account, but the reductions achieved by isolation will be so substantial that it would not be necessary to include it. This reduction factor varies from 1 to $ depending on the structural system used and represents the intuitive feeling that many structural forms have substantial reserves of strength beyond their clastic capacity. However, if in a large earthquake this ductile capacity is called upon, for example in a moment-resistant steel frame (R = 8), there will be substantial interstory drifts and conse- quently considerable damage to nonstructural elements, windows and ceilings. Large R fac- tors also translate into expensive structural forms and it is probably more cost effective to tase a structural system with a low R factor, eg. nonductile concrete, with an isolation sys- tem and design for elastic response in the superstructure. Many practical systems of seismic isolation have been developed in recent years and interest in the application of this technique for earthquake protection will continue to grow, ‘The reluctance of the structural engineering profession to use the concept is diminishing, ‘The research on isolation that has been carried out over the past few years and the construc- tion of several new seismically isolated buildings should enable engineers to proceed withBase Isolation: Linear Theory and Design 28 confidence that construction with isolation ean be economical and will involve no unexpected problems for contractors. These developments in base isolation represent an important step in the continuing search for increased seismic safety. REFERENCES [1] Stevenson, A., "Longevity of Natural Rubber in Structural Bearings,” Plastic and Rubber Processing and Applications, Vol. 5, No.3, pp. 253-258 (1985) [2] Siegenthaler, R., "Earthquake-Proof Building Supporting Structure with Shock Absorb- ing Damping Elements," Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Nr. 20 (1970). [a] Delfosse, G. C., “The Gapec System: A New Highly Effective Aseismie System,” Proceedings Sizth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, New Delhi, India, Vol. 3, pp. 1135-1140 (1977). [4] Delfosse, G. ©, and Delfose, P. G., “Barthquake Protection of a Building Containing Radioactive Waste by Means of Base Isolation System," Proceedings Eighth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, San Francisco, California, Vol. 5, pp. 1047-1054 (1984), {5] Kelly, J. M. and Beucke, K. E., "A Friction Damped Base Isolation System with Paik Safe Characteristics,” International Journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, Vol 11, pp. 33-56 (1983), [5] Kelly, J. M, “The Use of Base Isolation and Energy-Absorbing Restrainers for the Scismie Protection of a Large Power Plant Component,” EPRI-NP-2018, Electric Power Research Institute, Project 810-8 (1983) Ir] Kelly, J. M., "Phe Influence of Base Isolation on the Seismic Response of Light Secon- dary Equipment," Report No. UCB/EERC-81/17, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley (1981). [8] Kelly, J. M. and Tsai, H. C., "Seismic Response of Light Internal Equipment in Base Isolated Structures," Report No, UCB/EERO-84/17, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley (1984), [9] Robinson, W. H. and Tucker, A. G., A Lead-Rubber Shear Damper,” Bulletin of the New Zealand National Society for Earthquake Engineering, Vol. 10, No. 8, pp. 151-153 (1977), [10] Boardman, P. R,, Wood, B. J, and Carr, A.J, "Union House-A Cross Braced Struc- ture with Energy Dissipators," Bulletin ofthe New Zealand National Society for Earth uate Engineering, Va. 18, No.2, pp. 88-97 (1988) [11] Ahmadi, G. and Mostaghel, N., "On Dynamics of a Structure with a Frictional Founds- tion," Journal de Mecanique Theorigue et Appliguee, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 271-285 (1984). [12] Mostaghel, N, and Tanbakuchi, J., "Response of Sliding Structures to Earthquake Sup- port Motion,” Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, Vol. 11, pp. 720-748 (1983)2a 1M Kelly [13] Li, Li, "Base Isolation Measure for Aseismic Buildings in China,” Proceedings Eighth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Vol. 6, pp. 791-T98 (1984). (14) Plichon, C., et al, "Protection of Nuclear Power Plants against Seism,” Nuclear Tech nology, Vol. 49, pp. 285-806 (1980). [15] Postollee, J-C., "Les Fondations Antiseismiques de lo Centrale Nucleare de Cruas- Meysse,” Notes du Service Etudes Geni Civil d’EDF-REAM (1983). (16) Kelly, J. M., "Base Isolation in Japan, 1988," Report No. UCB/EERC-88/20, Earth- quake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley (1988) 17) Yamahara, H. and Izumi, M., "Actual Proof Tests of the Base Isolated Building Using Pul-Sized Model,” Shimizu Construction, Tohoku University, Japan (1987) 18] Allon, E, W. and Bailey, J. S., "Seismic Rehabilitation of the Salt Lake City and County Building Using Base Isolation,” Proceedings Ninth World Conference on Earth- quake Engineering, Tokyo, Japan (1988)