Abstract
The displacement of the isolated story of a base-isolated house built at a narrow land needs to be restricted using dampers or stoppers to meet the regulation of seismic grade for ordinary houses. This paper investigates the responses of a standard 2-story base-isolated steel frame house with restricted displacement considering various types of soil conditions. It is shown that the higher seismic grade can be achieved with some added dampers or large margin of displacement or by upgrading of the frame. Although the response could be larger than that of the ordinary houses, base-isolated houses have an advantage in terms of Life-cycle cost except for soft soil condition.
