Base Isolation costs 1

[seattlemike]

Hello fellow Structural Engineers,

Has anyone done research on the costs of Base Isolation of buildings? With the savings of reducing base shears by a factor of 3x or 10x, or the idea of keeping the remainder of the building elastic, I was wondering if there could be an overall savings in cost?

I know that base isolation definitely has cost saving over other systems trying to produce the same level of performance.

Thank you,
Mike in Seattle

 

[prsconsultant]

Mike in Seattle:

We have done base isolation of several historic buildings in the west coast. For each project we have compared the pros and cons of conventional strengthening schemes with base isolation. Base isolation costs are much much higher than the other schemes. But performance wise, base isolation stands out from the rest.

It is just a matter of risk/performance and acceptable level of damage (structural & non-structural) the client is willing to accept.

Good luck.

 

[seattlemike]

Hi PRS,

Yes, I would think that putting a base isolation system under and existing building is much more expensive than a damper system.

To clarify, I was looking to evaluate price comparisons for NEW construction. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for your post.

Mike