Mechanical Characteristics of Adaptive Rubber Bearings

Abstract eng:
Proposed in this study are several innovative seismic isolators consisting of rubber materials that are called adaptive rubber bearings because of their adaptive characteristics. The materials used in the proposed isolators are free of lead which is commonly found in lead rubber bearings. The lead material results in heavy environmental burden and lower yield strength and damping due to rising temperature during earthquakes, causing larger displacements than we would expect. The designed mechanisms in the proposed isolators enable these devices relatively easily manufactured and also provide extremely high damping to the bearings, which is highly desired by engineers in practice. The proposed rubber bearings are completely passive devices yet possess adaptive stiffness and damping. The change in stiffness and damping is predicable and can be calculated at specifiable and controllable displacement amplitudes. The major benefit of the adaptive characteristic of seismic isolators is that a given system can be optimized separately for multiple performance objects at multiple levels of earthquakes. In this paper, mathematical formulations have been derived to explain the mechanisms of the proposed devices. Experimental results are also provided to verify the advanced concept of the proposed devices.

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