ABSTRACT
In recent years, innovative means of enhancing structural functionality and safety against natural
and man-made hazards have been in various stages of research and development. By and large,
these approaches can be grouped into three broad areas as shown in Table 35.1: (1) base isolation;
(2) passive energy dissipation; and (3) active control. Of the three, base isolation can be considered a
more mature technology (e.g., ATC 1993; Skinner et al. 1993) with wider applications as compared with
the other two.
