Seismic Behavior of High-Tech Facility Isolated With a Trench Friction Pendulum System

Abstract

Seismic mitigation of high-tech facilities is a very important issue in earthquake prone areas such as Taiwan, Japan, U.S.A., etc. In order to lessen vulnerability of earthquake damage of high-tech equipment, base isolation seems to be a good choice. This paper mainly explores the possibility of using a new base isolation system named the trench friction pendulum system (TFPS) to reduce seismic responses of high-tech facilities. The main reasons, from a engineer’s point of view, to use this system for protecting high-tech equipment from earthquake damage are high efficiency and low cost. A series of shaking table tests for a high-tech facility isolated with TFPS isolators were carried out in the Department of Civil Engineering, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC. The experimental results show that the proposed system provides a good protection for the high-tech facility during strong earthquakes.