View article

Seismic floor isolation is a method for protecting nonstructural components, equipment and/or valuable building content in traditional fixed base buildings. Seismic floor isolation is achieved by isolating a secondary floor system from the primary structural floor using horizontally flexible elements called isolators. The nonstructural components, equipment and/or valuable building content is placed atop the secondary, isolated, floor system thereby decoupling the isolated component from the floor motion of the primary structural system. Though there is no codified procedure for designing floor isolation systems, the primary difference from traditional base isolation systems is the seismic input and the weight on the isolation system. In this paper results of a numerical study to investigate the performance and sensitivity of floor isolation systems (FISs) designed for the upper levels of multi-story steel plate shear wall frames …