This paper reviews the dynamic behavior under strong motions and structural design procedures of seismically isolated buildings. Chile and Japan are known as countries very prone to earthquakes and have a long history of earthquake damages and countermeasures. Seismic isolation system is a key issue to mitigate structural disasters against strong shaking, thus it is necessary to understand the characteristics of ground motions and the behaviors of seismically isolated buildings to enhance the seismic safety against earthquakes.
In Chile, after last 2010 earthquake, seismically isolated buildings have begun to be accepted into our society in order to keep structural safety and functionality, and to ensure that, base isolation system should be examined continuously to verify the validity of structural design.
Firstly, this paper introduces the observed behavior of seismically isolated buildings during last major earthquakes and advantages of this type of systems. Secondly, summarizes the strong motion observation of a target building and dynamic behavior of target building based on observed records. Finally, structural design of isolation systems is presented through a fundamental procedure.