Abstract:
Earthquake is one of the most dreadful, sudden and uncontrolled natural disasters. „Base Isolation‟ is one of the popular seismic retrofitting techniques used through-out the world. The prime objective of this study is to identify the effectiveness of a specific rubber bearing isolator in reducing the overall drift of a structure caused by lateral forces like earthquake. An 8 storey RCC building assumed to be located in the moderate seismic zone of Bangladesh is taken as a reference for this work. The building is modelled with and without base „Isolator‟ by using the finite element software „SAP 2000‟ and designed by adopting the building design code „ACI 318‟. It is evident from the research that, use of the rubber bearing isolator increases the fundamental period of vibration and the overall displacement of the structure to a greater extent. At the same time the relative storey drift decreases significantly. Though the whole work focuses on a specific example, but it paves the way for the design of rubber bearing isolators which can be used in the multi-storeyed residential buildings with confidence.
