A study on seismic pounding probability of buildings in Taipei metropolitan area

Abstract

This study investigates the seismic pounding probability of buildings in the Taipei metropolitan area. Detailed procedures of the analytical method are presented. The results indicate that the building separation specified in the Seismic Provisions of the 1997 Taiwan Building Code (TBC'97) generally provides a relatively conservative estimate compared to that specified in the 19,94 Uniform Building Code (UBC'94) for the required distance to avoid pounding. This observation is demonstrated by comparing both the separation distance and/or the pounding probability of adjacent buildings based on the TBC'97 with those based on the UBC'94. The comparison results also reveal that the building separation distance specified by the TBC'97 is 1.6 times that specified by the UBC94 for the same building and site soil condition. If a reduction coefficient of 0.375 is adopted instead of the 0.6 specified in the TBC'97 to consider the effect of vibration phase difference of adjacent buildings, the critical pounding risk of the TBC'97 and the UBC'94 will be similar.