Experimental and numerical studies on new multi-dimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation device: Horizontal properties

Abstract

Earthquake is a complex multi-dimensional excitation. Counter-measures of such multi-dimensional excitation on many critical structures, such as long-span structures and high-rise buildings, must be taken into account to avert the structural failure. Many types of earthquake mitigation or isolation devices for mitigating earthquake-induced effects in the horizontal direction have been proposed and applied to real applications. However, study on multi-dimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation devices for structures has been received much less attention. In this paper, a new multi-dimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation device was developed and tested. Effects of excitation frequency and environmental temperature on horizontal properties of this device were considered. At the same time, fatigue properties of the device under different amplitude horizontal excitations were also studied experimentally. The equivalent standard solid model which can effectively describe the effect of frequency and temperature on the horizontal properties of the device was proposed and verified. From the experimental results, it may be concluded that the multi-dimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation device owns fine energy dissipation and fatigue resistance capabilities.