Abstract: “Insufficient separation distance between adjacent buildings may lead to their pounding resulting in damage or failure during strong earthquakes. Accordingly, most of the design codes specify a minimum separation or gap distance between adjacent buildings to prevent this pounding phenomenon. This research studies the seismic pounding between adjacent reinforced concrete buildings under various ground motions. It also investigates the factors affecting pounding and proposes a technique to mitigate it. Buildings are modeled as two-dimensional frames to idealize the adjacent buildings. The total of 10 different cases of adjacent frames with different height combinations. Nonlinear time history analysis is utilized using finite element computer program ETABS. Real earthquake records are scaled and used to simulate ground motion. Gap element is used to model pounding between buildings. The effect of variation of some design parameters on seismic pounding is investigated. Different parameters”

Keywords: structural pounding, dynamic analysis, poudning mitigation.