Three-Dimensional Simulation of Structural Pounding during Earthquakes

A three-dimensional model is developed for the simulation of the pounding response of two or more adjacent buildings during earthquakes. The contact-impact problem is treated by the Lagrange multiplier method. The structures are modeled as multiple-degree-of-freedom systems with finite elements and with the possibility of contact between slabs or slabs and columns. Contact points are not known a priori, and are located through a searching procedure among the candidate contact surfaces. The dynamic equilibrium equations of contact follow an iterative formulation at each time step to account for the current contact conditions. With this three-dimensional idealization, the effect of various in-plan configurations of adjacent buildings as well as the induced deformations due to torsion during pounding are investigated for two real earthquake motions.