THE PERFORMANCE OF INTER-STORY ISOLATED STRUCTURES SUBJECT TO WIND AND EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS

Abstract

The implementation of inter-story isolation has gained popularity over the past

decade. The focus of this thesis is to study the performance of an inter-story isolated

building under earthquake ground motion as well as high wind forces through the

time-history analysis of a multi-degree-of-freedom building model. The performance

of the structure is compared to a conventional building with the same number of

floors. Potential improvements to the inter-story isolation system are analyzed

including the effects of varying the stiffness of the isolation layer, as well as adding

viscous and rate-independent linear damping. Finally, practical methods of

implementing rate-independent linear damping are discussed.