Earthquake-protective building buffer

Abstract

A manufacture called “earthquake buffer” to protect a building structure from destructive earthquakes as well as to secure its stability under strong winds, comprising two non-resonant rolling friction slide layers positioned above each other on a building footing and consisting of a plurality of cylindrical rollers stretched parallel in a direction of one of the main building axes while being orthogonal to the bars in an alternative slide layer. The slide layers are interlaid with a distributive plate and topped with an inertia block connected to a rigid first floor diaphragm and the building superstructure. With a magnitude of earth movement exceeding a certain threshold, the earthquake buffer permits practically unlimited horizontal excursions of the footing relative to the superstructure while transmitting a dramatically reduced shearing force upwards and preventing any sizable lateral resonant effects in the protected building.

What is claimed:  
     
         1 . A system of properly manufactured earthquake buffers adapted to separate a building superstructure from its foundation for protection against damaging effect of strong earthquakes and, at the same time, to prevent such separation under a strong wind or minor earthquakes, each of said devices comprising: 
 two non-resonant rolling friction horizontal slide layers positioned above each other on a building footing and consisting of a plurality of identical cylindrical rollers distanced from each other and running parallel in a direction of one of the main building axes, said rollers in one of said layers are orthogonal to said rollers in another said layer in order to provide an adequate separating effect for any horizontal component of earth movement;    a horizontal distributive plate between said two slide layers to provide a better gravity load application to contacting surfaces of said layers;    an inertia block located on top of the upper of said slide layers and supporting a rigid first floor diaphragm and said superstructure, said inertia block together with said floor diaphragm having a mass comparable to a mass of said superstructure in order to prevent any higher frequency pulses to be transmitted from said footing to said superstructure and to create a friction force that can resist any possible strong wind pressure.