Comparative performance of isolated and fixed-base reinforced concrete structures

The earthquake transmits to the structure a large quantity of energy that causes damage to structures. The seismic isolation technique can absorb a large quantity of the seismic energy. The seismic isolation concept is a new technique in earthquake engineering, its principle is quite simple, and it consists to create a discontinuity between the foundation and the superstructure, so that seismic energy cannot be completely transmitted into the structure. Therefore, this article includes a numerical application of the nonlinear static method, the capacity spectrum method (CSM), on two types of structures, fixed base structure and isolated base structure. The CSM is one of the methods used for the evaluation of seismic performance. Its principle consists in superimposing a curve which represents the capacity of the structure originated from a non-linear static analysis (Pushover), with a curve representing the solicitation brought by the earthquake. The intersection of these two curves represents the point performance, which evaluates the maximum displacement of the structure in the plastic domain.