Three dimensional nonlinear dynamic modeling of a vertically isolated ancient statue displayed in a base isolated museum building

This research concerns with the question of how the seismic isolation methods can be applied efficiently to protect the ancient statues under both horizontal and vertical strong earthquake excitations. The results are achieved by carrying out nonlinear dynamical analyses under three dimensional earthquake ground motion data on a generic ancient statue model, considering that it is displayed in a non isolated and a horizontally isolated building. The model is developed with 8-node cubic finite elements, and placed on a rigid platform, which is modelled as an area element of rectangular shape. The isolation devices are modelled as non linear spring elements for the horizontal seismic isolation, and gap elements (compression only) for the vertical seismic isolation.