Behaviour of asymmetric building with double variable frequency pendulum isolator

Presented in this paper is the behaviour of asymmetric building isolated by the double variable frequency pendulum isolator (DVFPI). The DVFPI is an adoption of single variable frequency pendulum isolator (VFPI). The geometry and coefficient of friction of top and bottom sliding surfaces can be unequal. The governing equations of motion of the building-isolation system are derived and solved in incremental form. The analysis duly considers the interaction of frictional forces in the two principal directions developed at each sliding surface of the DVFPI. In order to investigate the behaviour of the base isolation using the DVFPI, the coupled lateral-torsional response is obtained under different parametric variations for a set of six far-fault earthquake ground motions and criterion to optimize its performance is proposed. Further, influences of the initial time period, coefficient of friction and frequency variation factors at the two sliding surfaces are investigated. The numerical results of the extensive parametric study help in understanding the torsional behaviour of the structure isolated with the double sliding surfaces as in the DVFPI. It is found that the performance of the DVFPI can be optimized by designing the top sliding surface initially softer and smoother relative to the bottom one.