Authors: P. L. Folhento, R. C. Barros, M. T. Braz-César

Natural phenomena such as earthquakes may induce exceptional lateral displacements capable of causing collisions between adjacent buildings with insufficient separation distances, significantly influencing the dynamic behavior of the structures and causing considerable structural damage or leading to the collapse of the structures involved. The non-linear behavior of buildings is important in structural and dynamic analysis, revealing to be more significant in the occurrence of impacts between buildings. In impact problems between buildings, it is usual to use impact elements, whose effectiveness depends mostly on the definition of their parameters’ values, the impact stiffness and damping. Impact stiffness is subjected to uncertainties that can be reduced through parametric studies. Thus, this paper considers the study of impacts between two adjacent nonlinear structural systems with a single degree-of-freedom, varying the impact stiffness of the contact element and verifying its influence on the responses of the structures. This parameter influences the flexible structures more, particularly in terms of displacements, accelerations and impact forces and has little influence on the maximum lateral inelastic forces.

P. L. Folhento¹ | R. C. Barros² | M. T. Braz-César³
1Aluno de Doutoramento, FEUP – Universidade do Porto
2Professor Associado com Agregação, FEUP – Universidade do Porto
3Professor Adjunto, ESTiG – Instituto Politécnico de Bragança