Page 122 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

Seismic Isolation in Earthquake -
Resistant Structural Design for Resilient Cities

seismic isolation residential type building complex constructed in İstanbul,
the historical Nusretiye Clock Tower was placed on seismic isolators and
the historical Göztepe Railway Station Building was reinforced with seismic
isolation technology.
The increasing need for an isolator test laboratory in parallel with the
increasing seismic isolation applications in Türkiye has been largely addressed
by the ESQUAKE Seismic Isolator Test Laboratory established at Eskişehir
Technical University (Figure 5). Laboratory Director Prof. Dr. Gökhan Özdemir
stated that the laboratory, which has a vertical loading capacity of 2 thousand
tons and a horizontal loading capacity of 200 tons, is among the first 5
independent laboratories in the world in respect to its loading capacity. The
laboratory, which has a very high horizontal loading speed (1 m/s maximum
speed), also provides services to foreign countries (TV-Akşam, 2023).

Figure 5. Tests with friction pendulum isolator and lead core rubber isolator. ESQUAKE
Seismic Isolator Test Laboratory. (Photo: Prof. Dr. Gökhan Özdemir)
Seismic insulation is applied in a wide range of other types of structures
besides typical low- to medium-storey reinforced concrete and steel buildings
and bridges:
• For Liquid Metal Cooled Nuclear Reactors, a special seismic
isolation application was developed by Yoo et al.(2000).
• Wooden structures; since these structures usually exhibit a good
earthquake behavior due to their light weight and their ability to
perform advanced inelastic deformation without collapsing, seismic
isolation has not been applied much in these structures. However,
there are also cases where seismic isolation is preferred in such
structures due to the fact that the repair of damages caused by
inelastic behavior in wooden structures is difficult and expensive
(Symans et al. 2002). For example, in Montreal, Canada, a two-storey
house with wooden frame system has a seismic isolation system
using 15 sliding bearings. In San Franscisco, USA, a four-storey
wooden building with a frame system was reinforced using sliding
bearings after being damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

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