9702058 Chang The goal os this research project is to develop an intelligent 3- Dimension seismic base isolation system aimed at protecting critical high-tech manufacturing buildings and their contents. The building contents, which usually are far more valuable than the building itself, consisting of delicate equipment, computers, chip or disk products, etc. The ratio of the content loads to the structural dead loads is typically high for such high-tech industrial plants. These content loads change in magnitude and location frequently and usually will cause horizontal and vertical eccentricities which in turn will cause ampliation of torsion, tilting, and rocking responses. The intelligent protective systems proposed are designed to generate liquid artificial mass as needed to maintain the fundamental natural frequencies of the isolated building as a constant, and also produce a sound alarm if any isolator is over loaded. The smart system can also adjust its own properties to fine tune the isolation system automatically. If the smart system does not have to be active during a strong earthquake in order to function effectively both for vertical thrust fault prone regions or lateral strike-slip fault prone regions. An integral, companion educational program O.K. consisting of innovative system design, demonstrations and workshops will capture the interest of young adults, to give undergraduates the opportunity to indulge their academic curiosities, and to prepare graduate students for a productive career in intelligent building design will also be implemented. ***
