Base Isolation

Base isolation, also known as seismic base isolation or base isolation system, is one of the most popular means of protecting a structure against earthquake forces. It is a collection of structural elements which should substantially decouple a superstructure from its substructure resting on a shaking ground thus protecting a building or non-building structure's integrity.

Base isolation is one of the most powerful tools of earthquake engineering pertaining to the passive structural vibration control technologies. It is meant to enable a building or non-building structure to survive a potentially devastating seismic impact through a proper initial design or subsequent modifications. In some cases, application of base isolation can raise both a structure's seismic performance and its seismic sustainability considerably. Contrary to popular belief base isolation does not make a building earthquake proof.

Base isolation system consists of isolation units with or without isolation components, where:

1.    Isolation units are the basic elements of a base isolation system which are intended to provide the mentioned decoupling effect to a building or non-building structure.

2.    Isolation components are the connections between isolation units and their parts having no decoupling effect of their own.