The Rocking Response of Seismically Isolated, Free-Standing Rigid Blocks.

Abstract eng:
This paper examines the rocking response and stability of rigid blocks standing free on an isolated base supported on linear viscoelastic bearings and bearings that exhibit bilinear behavior. The investigation concludes that seismic isolation is beneficial only for small blocks. This happens because while seismic isolation increase the “static” value of the minimum overturning acceleration, this acceleration value remains nearly constant as we move towards larger blocks or higher frequency pulses; therefore seismic isolation removes drastically from the dynamics of rocking blocks the beneficial property of increasing stability as their size increases or as the excitation pulse period decreases. This remarkable result suggests that freestanding ancient classical columns exhibit superior stability as they are built (standing free on a rigid foundation) rather than if they were seismically isolated even with isolation systems with very long isolation periods. The study further confirms this finding by examining the seismic response of the columns from the peristyle of two ancient Greek temples when subjected to historic records.

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