Investigation of minimum required seismic gap distances between single degree of freedom reinforced concrete buildings

Structural collisions are expected due to the different dynamic characteristics (natural period, stiffness, mass, height etc.) of neighboring structures with insufficient seismic gap distances. In many destructive earthquakes in the past, structural collisions have occurred between adjacent buildings with insufficient gap distances. It has been observed that these collisions have caused severe damage to buildings and even total collapse. In our country, there is a collision potential in many low and mid-rise buildings, which represent a significant portion of the building stock, due to insufficient gap distances or adjacent arrangements. Therefore, determining the minimum sufficient gap distances is very important in order to prevent seismic collisions (pounding effects) between neighboring structures. In this study, the effects of different strength ratios and different period values on the seismic gap distance were investigated. In this context, it was aimed to determine the minimum gap distances between neighboring buildings with different floor numbers, strength ratios, and period values. Analyses performed using three-dimensional (3D) building models with nonlinear behavior reach serious dimensions due to reasons such as intensive labor and storage requirement for data storage. Therefore, by converting 3D models to equivalent SDOF systems, it was aimed to determine gap distances with a simple and useful labor. The outcomes indicate that equivalent SDOF systems can be used in estimating the required gap distances between adjacent buildings. It was observed that the required gap distances obtained from equivalent SDOF systems and 3D building models provide close results, especially when the period values of adjacent buildings diverge from each other. However, it should not be ignored that SDOF systems provide more conservative results in cases where the period values are close. Also, it should not be forgotten that the findings obtained from the study represent low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings.