• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.427-439
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• 2003

A previous study evaluated the seismic response of typical multi-span simply supported (MSSS) and multi-span continuous (MSC) steel-girder bridges in the central and southeastern United States. The results showed that the bridges were vulnerable to damage resulting from impact between decks, and large ductility demands on nonductile columns. Furthermore, fixed and expansion bearings were likely to fail during strong ground motion. In this paper, several retrofit measures to improve the seismic performance of typical multi-span simply supported and multi-span continuous steel girder bridges are evaluated, including the use of elastomeric bearings, lead-rubber bearings, and restrainer cables. It is determined that lead-rubber bearings are the most effective retrofit measure for reducing the seismic vulnerability of typical bridges. While isolation provided by elastomeric bearings limits the forces into the columns, the added flexibility results in pounding between decks in the MSSS steel-girder bridge. Restrainer cables, which are becoming a common retrofit measure, are only moderately effective in reducing the seismic vulnerability of MSSS and MSC steel girder bridges.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.761-783
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• 2006

The enlargement of interest in base isolators as an earthquake-proof design strategy has dramatically accelerated experimental studies of elastomeric bearings worldwide. In this paper, a new base isolator concept that is a hybrid system of rubber bearings is proposed. Uniaxial, biaxial, and triaxial shaking table tests are also performed to study the seismic behavior of a 0.4-scale three-story isolated steel structure in the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taiwan. Experimental results demonstrate that structures with a hybrid system of rubber bearings composed of stirruped rubber bearings and laminated rubber bearings can actually decrease the seismic responses of the superstructure. It has been proved through the shaking table tests that the proposed hybrid system of rubber bearings is a very promising tool to enhance the seismic resistance of structures. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the proposed analytical model in this paper can predict the mechanical behavior of the hybrid system of rubber bearings and seismic responses of the base-isolated structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.129-144
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• 2020

In this study, the idea of damping force linearly proportional to horizontal isolation displacement is implemented into sloped rolling-type bearings in order to meet different seismic performance goals. In addition to experimentally demonstrating its practical feasibility, the previously developed analytical model is further modified to be capable of accurately predicting its hysteretic behavior. The numerical predictions by using the modified analytical model present a good match of the shaking table test results. Afterward, several sloped rolling-type bearings designed with linearly variable damping force are numerically compared with a bearing designed with conventional constant damping force. The initial friction damping force adopted in the former is designed to be smaller than the constant one adopted in the latter. The numerical comparison results indicate that when the horizontal isolation displacement does not exceed the designed turning point (or practically when subjected to minor or frequent earthquakes that seldom have a great displacement demand for seismic isolation), the linearly variable damping force design can exhibit a better acceleration control performance than the constant damping force design. In addition, the former, in general, advantages the re-centering performance over the latter. However, the maximum horizontal displacement response of the linearly variable damping force design, in general, is larger than that of the constant damping force design. It is particularly true when undergoing a horizontal isolation displacement response smaller than the designed turning point and designing a smaller value of initial friction damping force.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.319-334
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• 2018

In this paper, an analytical study was carried out to propose an optimum base-isolated system for the design of steel structures equipped with lead rubber bearings (LRB). For this, 5 and 10-storey steel moment resisting frames (MRFs) were designed as Special Moment Frame (SMF). These two-dimensional and three-bay frames equipped with a set of isolation systems within a predefined range that minimizes the response of the base-isolated frames subjected to a series of earthquakes. In the design of LRB, two main parameters, namely, isolation period (T) and the ratio of strength to weight (Q/W) supported by isolators were considered as 2.25, 2.5, 2.75 and 3 s, 0.05, 0.10 and 0.15, respectively. The Force-deformation behavior of the isolators was modelled by the bi-linear behavior which could reflect the nonlinear characteristics of the lead-plug bearings. The base-isolated frames were modelled using a finite element program and those performances were evaluated in the light of the nonlinear time history analyses by six natural accelerograms compatible with seismic hazard levels of 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years. The performance of the isolated frames was assessed in terms of roof displacement, relative displacement, interstorey drift, absolute acceleration, base shear and hysteretic curve.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.427-444
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• 2020

The performance of an isolated horizontally curved continuous bridge with High Damping Rubber (HDR) Bearings has been investigated under seismic loading conditions. The effectiveness of response controls of the bridge by HDR bearings for various aspects viz. variation in ground motion characteristics, multi-directional effect, level of earthquake shaking, varying incidence angle, have been determined. Three recorded ground motions, representative of historical earthquakes along with near-field, far-field and forward directivity effects, have been considered in the study. The efficacy of the bearings with bidirectional effect considering interaction behavior of bearing and pier has also been investigated. Modeling and analysis of the bridge have been done by finite element approach. Sensitivity studies of the bridge response with respect to design parameters of the bearings for the considered ground motions have been performed. The importance of the nonlinearity of HDR bearings along with crucial design parameters has been identified. It has been observed that the HDR bearings performed well in different variations of ground motions, especially for controlling torsional moment. However, the deck displacement has been found to be increased significantly in case of Turkey ground motions, considering forward directivity effect, which needs to be paid more attention from designer point of view.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.385-399
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• 2024

Highway bridges usually extend over long distances and are vulnerable to the variation of ground motions. In this paper, a 5-link continuous bridge with a total length of 510 m was selected for seismic vulnerability analyses under consistent and multi-support excitations. Fragility curves for piers and bearings considering both the non-isolated and isolated conditions are generated through incremental dynamic analysis (IDA). The results show that for the non-isolated condition with elastomeric bearings (EBs), the junction piers between adjacent links are more vulnerable than interior piers within links under consistent excitation, whereas it is exactly the opposite for the bearings. Under the multi-support excitation, the fragility of the bearings at junction piers significantly increases due to the unsynchronized movement of adjacent links. For the isolated condition with lead-core rubber bearings (LRBs) and friction pendulum bearings (FPBs), the fragility of piers is effectively reduced compared to EBs, especially for FPBs and under multi-support excitation. The fragility of LRBs is lower than that of EBs under both excitation modes. The fragility of FPBs is apparently higher than that of the piers, controlling the vulnerability of the bridge. This study provides a reference for the seismic design of highway bridges.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.53-60
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• 2009

Isolated structures use devices such as high damping rubber bearings (HDRB) in order to dramatically reduce the seismic forces transmitted from the substructure to the superstructure. The laminated rubber bearing is the most important structural member of a seismic isolation system. The basic characteristics of rubber bearings have been confirmed through compression tests, compressive shearing tests and creep tests. This paper presents the results and analysis of a 1000hr, ongoing creep test conducted at 7.5MPa, 8.37MPa in our laboratory. The long-term behavior of bridge bearings, such as high-damping rubber bearings, will be discovered through a compression creep test subjected to actual environmental conditions. These tests indicated that the maximum creep deformation is about $0.3{\sim}1.92%$ of total rubber thickness.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.423-430
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• 1998

Elastomeric bearings are frequently used as a means to isolate structural systems from earthquake loadings. The combination of rubber layers and reinforcing steel shims makes the bearings stiff axially but soft laterally The shear flexibility of these short columns can lead to relatively low buckling loads which may be further reduced when high shear strains are simultaneously imposed. The area reduction formula has been proposed to account for the reduction in buckling load due to shear. The result obtained from the formula is presumed to be conservative but the degree of conservatism is unknown. This paper describes a numerical study which aims at determining the effect of high shear strain on the critical load of rubber bearings. The results from the finite element analysis which accounts for both the material and geometric non-linearities are compared against the theoretical results in order to examine the validity of the theoretical formulas.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.109-112
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• 2006

In this study, an approach that installs seismic isolation bearings was proposed for the seismic retrofit of the existing bridges. The method that replaces all existing bearings with seismic isolators was proposed already. However, in this study, we recommend to utilize the existing bearings for the benefit of safety and cost. According to our proposal, the seismic isolators do not support vertical loads but they just function as the period shifter and the horizontal damper. To verify this approach experimentally, the real scale bearings and isolators for the real highway bridges were designed and fabricated. And the responses of this isolated bridges to the assumed earthquakes were determined by the pseudo dynamic test scheme. The test results were also compared to the responses computed by the well known structural analysis software to check the reliability of the test. From the test results, we found that the retrofitted bridges using the proposed method showed stable performances under earthquakes.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.847-862
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• 2015

Typical base isolated buildings are designed so that the superstructure remains elastic in design-level earthquakes, though the isolation layer is often quite nonlinear using, e.g., hysteretic elements such as lead-rubber bearings and friction pendulum bearings. Similarly, other well-performing structural control systems keep the structure within the linear range except during the most extreme of excitations. Design optimization of these isolators or other structural control systems requires computationally-expensive response simulations of the (mostly or fully) linear structural system with the nonlinear structural control devices. Standard nonlinear structural analysis algorithms ignore the localized nature of these nonlinearities when computing responses. This paper proposes an approach for the computationally-efficient optimal design of passive isolators by extending a methodology previously developed by the authors for accelerating the response calculation of mostly linear systems with local features (linear or nonlinear, deterministic or random). The methodology is explained and applied to a numerical example of a base isolated building with a hysteretic isolation layer. The computational efficiency of the proposed approach is shown to be significant for this simple problem, and is expected to be even more dramatic for more complex systems.