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The phenomenon of earthquake-induced structural pounding has attracted the researchers' attention for several years now. The aim of this paper is to show the results of two experiments concerning interactions between elements made of different building materials, such as steel, concrete, timber and ceramic. The first experiment was conducted by dropping balls from different height levels onto a rigid surface, whereas the second one was focused on pounding-involved response of two tower models excited on a shaking table. The results of the impact experiment show that the value of the coefficient of restitution depends substantially on the prior-impact velocity as well as on the material used. Based on these results, the appropriate formulations have been suggested to be applied in the numerical simulations. The results of the shaking table tests show a considerable influence of the material used for colliding elements on the behaviour of structures during earthquakes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]