Dynamic Character and Aseismic Capacity of Chinese Ancient Buildings

Chinese ancient buildings are mainly made of wood. For thousands of years they have experienced sorts of earthquakes but remain intact. In this paper, we took Ying-Hua Palace in the Forbidden City in China as an example. By simulation methods we carried out analysis on dynamic character as well as a seismic capacity of the building. By introducing 2-node semi-rigid spring elements, we simulated tenon-moritse joints and tou-kungs which are members of Chinese ancient buildings as such spring elements. Then we built model of Ying-Hua Palace. By modal analysis we studied vibration characters of the building. By analysis of response spectrum of the palace we obtained displacement as well as inner forces of the structure. Results show that basic frequency of Ying-Hua Palace is 0.58 Hz, whose main vibration modes are of translation; Under rare earthquake of magnitude 8 the structure is remains intact; On the other hand, the simulation method for Chinese ancient buildings is effective.