Innovative Design of Power Generation Seismic Base Isolator

Abstract

By the overview of past seismic events, post-seismic blackouts are unsurprisingly common. Lives that crucially depend on electricity could be in extreme danger. Seismic waves deliver an extraordinary amount of power, and the current solutions for artificial structures are to dissipate the energy in the form of lateral deflection, damper strain, or isolation. This research proposes a new innovative design of a seismic base isolator that can harvest the seismic energy, which was conventionally dissipated, converted into electricity that powers life support devices during blackouts. The battery stores electricity from multiple minor earthquake which did not cause blackouts and use it on the major blackout inducing earthquakes. This design is inspired by the regenerative braking systems and suspensions used in vehicles. This research will include designs for the seismic isolation system, seismic kinetic energy harvesting system, and power generating system. The electricity stabilizing capacitor system and battery system will not be included in this research. Maximum oscillation amplitude of the damped forced system is derived by Lenz's law, Hooke's law with mass-spring-damper ordinary differential equations.