Evaluation of seismic demands for adjacent irregular buildings with transverse alignment eccentricity

Abstract

Seismic pounding occurs when adjacent buildings lack adequate spacing, exacerbated by Alignment eccentricity and horizontal irregularities of adjacent buildings. The seismic lateral oscillation of adjacent irregular buildings promotes a torsional response under earthquake excitation, moreover, the gap distances recommended in the regulations to prevent collisions are generally insufficient due to the pounding behavior complicated by irregularity of adjacent buildings. Hence, this research aims to evaluate the eccentric pounding effects on seismic response demands for adjacent irregular buildings with transverse alignment eccentricity. The displacement, inter-story drift, story shear force, and torsional rotation responses are investigated and compared for different levels of irregularity. Results findings reveal that increasing alignment eccentricity of adjacent buildings leads to greater lateral displacements in the rebound direction, reduced displacements in the impact direction, and increased torsional rotation of the buildings, consequently, promote eccentric pounding, higher eccentricity leads to greater horizontal floor displacements and twisting motions, which increases the chances of adjacent floors colliding.