Dynamic Analysis for Elevators Installed in Mid-story Seismic Isolated Buildings

The mid-story seismic isolated building has isolators at the mid-story and it is expected to apply for seismic retrofit. The elevator for mid-story seismic isolated buildings receives strong rail bending stress by large deformation at the isolated floor. A new elevator system has been established to reduce the rail stress. The system has a long rail fixing span at the isolated floor. But it has complicated dynamic behavior such as large rail deformation and guide contact with the rail. To evaluate those dynamic responses, we developed a nonlinear finite element model. By the model, we can evaluate the earthquake transient behavior and check the rail bending stress. The simulation result was validated by the experiment.