Rocking Seismic Resisting Systems: Concepts, Analysis, Design, and Applicability to Irregular Buildings

This chapter presents recent developments in rocking self-centering systems for seismic resistance. These systems have shown great potential for damage-free seismic applications, leading to extensive research to investigate their behavior and develop design tools. However, most available methods for designing these systems focus on two-dimensional regular structures, limiting their applicability to real-world problems. We present recently developed methods for the analysis and design of these systems, applicable to irregular buildings. Efficient numerical methods for dynamic nonlinear time history analysis are discussed, specialized for self-centering systems to reduce computational burden. These methods are used to develop efficient gradient-based optimization procedures for automatic design. The optimization problems are formulated to minimize the construction cost, subject to performance constraints that match design code requirements for general irregular structures. The problem is formulated in a continuous form, enabling efficient solutions using gradient-based optimization algorithms. The results of the designed structures show attractive solutions, especially for irregular buildings, which cannot be achieved using currently available methods for these systems.