Open Access
ARTICLE
Improving the Seismic Performance of Staircases in Building Structures with a Novel Isolator
Yafei Zhang1,2, Ping Tan1,2,*, Haitao Ma1,2, Marco Donà1,2
1 Key Laboratory of Earthquake Resistance, Earthquake Mitigation and Structural Safety, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510405, China
2 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Applied Technology, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510405, China
* Corresponding Author: Ping Tan. Email:
(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Numerical Modeling and Simulation for Structural Safety and Disaster Mitigation)
Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2020, 124(2), 415-431. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2020.09054
Received 08 November 2019; Accepted 24 February 2020; Issue published 20 July 2020
Abstract
A staircase provides the main escape way from a building in an emergency. Unfortunately, it may suffer severe damages or even collapse during an
earthquake. For improving the seismic performance of staircases, this paper
proposes an innovative staircase isolator with the features of lightweight, costeffective and ease of construction and replacement, which is formed by suitable
engineering plastic shims between rubber layers. A connection construction
scheme is also proposed for the isolated staircase. Systematic performance tests
have been carried out to characterize the isolator in terms of mechanic behavior
and ultimate states. The test results show that mechanical properties of the
proposed staircase isolator are excellent and suitable for staircase in building
structure. In order to investigate the influence of staircase on building structural
responses, time history analyses of a typical building structure without staircase (WS), with fixed staircase (FS) and with isolated staircase (IS) are
conducted and compared within the environment of SAP2000. Results show
that staircase isolation can effectively eliminate the diagonal bracing effect
of staircase slab and make structural components uniformly stressed. When
the novel isolator is employed for staircase in a building structure, there is
no vulnerable position in staircase and the performance of staircase in building
structure can be greatly enhanced.
Keywords
Cite This Article
Zhang, Y., Tan, P., Ma, H., Donà, M. (2020). Improving the Seismic Performance of Staircases in Building Structures with a Novel Isolator.
CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, 124(2), 415–431.
Citations