Part 2: Applications. Introduction

As pointed out in the introduction of Part 1, the isolation strategy can be used to effectively decouple a structure from its environment and thus the structure can be protected from damaging seismic loads or unwanted vibrations and noises from the environment. The method has been used for solving vibration and shock problems in machinery and equipment for many years, but its application to the protection of structures from seismic loadings is relatively recent. Owing to the current interest generated by the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes, all but one of the papers in this publication deal with seismic isolation. The authors preview the papers in this section on the following applications of seismic isolation to: buildings, civil structures, industrial facilities, and nuclear plants.