Earthquake-Induced lateral-torsional pounding between three adjacent structures

Pounding between adjacent buildings, often characterized by different material properties, can be cause of significant or even severe structural damage. This paper presents an analytical study on the earthquake induced lateral-torsional pounding between three multi-storey adjacent buildings with substantially different dynamic properties. Both a non-linear viscoelastic model to simulate impact and a non-linear behaviour of the storey shear forces and torques are considered in the model, differently from many commercial softwares which admit just one non-linearity. In order to solve the dynamic equation of motion, a numerical algorithm is suitably programmed by using MATLAB software.