Keywords: ancient columns, earthquake, discrete element method, seismic isolation..

The research work, described in this paper, investigates the effect of friction type seismic isolation without a damping mechanism on the overall seismic behaviour of multi-drum columns. This type of seismic isolator can be applied to multi-drum columns by incorporating thin polycarbonate material with a low friction coefficient between the individual drums of each column. In this paper, parametric analyses are performed using friction type isolators subject to strong ground motion excitations that are selected from specific regions where such ancient monuments are built. The influence of the lateral positioning of these isolators is examined in order to determine how the position at different levels of the columns affects their overall response. Furthermore, the value of the coefficient of fiction of the isolator is also studied parametrically in order to evaluate its effect on the overall seismic response of the column. For this procedure, the discrete element method is utilized by simulating the individual rock blocks as distinct bodies. A specialized software application is developed, using an object-oriented programming language, in order to take into account the seismic isolators and enable the simulation of multi-drum columns under these conditions.

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