Earthquake protector

Main page: Earthquake engineering

An earthquake protector is a type of base isolation made to protect building and non-building structures against damage from strong earthquakes.

Assembly of four earthquake protectors.

A building's seismic performance may be improved by reducing vibrations. This may be done with damping mechanisms in vibration control technologies and especially in base isolation.

However, for the very pliant systems such as base isolated structures, with a relatively low bearing stiffness but with a high damping, the so-called "damping force" may turn out the main pushing force at a strong earthquake. This finding created a theoretical ground in earthquake engineering for a damping-disengaged base isolation technology called Earthquake protector.