ABSTRACT
Beyond life safety considerations, increasing a building's service life is paramount in regions of high seismic risk. With the implementation of scientific structural devices and systems, building services, contents, and economic investments can be protected. Building codes specifying equivalent static analyses in many cases lead to conventional designs including members and joints that have limited ductility and have questionable economic value following a major seismic event. The use of pinned mechanisms in structures is not limited to frame joints; such mechanisms may also be used in large structural components that assist in natural building behavior during extreme seismic events and allow for increased building life cycles. A rocker mechanism, installed at the mid-height of the Poly Corporation Headquarters in Beijing, China, allowed the building to freely move during a significant earthquake, while providing support for the world's largest cable net and for a mid-height museum used to display some of China's most important antiquities.
