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

Impacts between buildings generated by the action of earthquakes is a phenomenon that has been recognized in the last three decades, gaining research importance. When buildings are very close to each other, common in large cities, the likelihood of collisions between buildings increases, which can cause substantial damage or lead to the global collapse of the structures. This contact phenomenon is extremely difficult to model with high precision, as it depends on many variables and their interrelationships. When modeling structural pounding, it is sufficient to accurately estimate the magnitude of the pounding forces to understand how they will influence the overall dynamic behavior of the intervening structures. Thus, in this work different impact models in the literature are presented to analyze their characteristics and relative advantages and disadvantages. It appears that there is a range of possibilities in impact modeling, and that the respective models are more accurate, overcoming previously recognized limitations. However, the lack of research and experimental data is also recognized, especially in the analysis of this problem in three dimensions.

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