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Design and Construction of a Passive Control System for Seismic Isolation of Flexible Element Type

Abstract:

A seismically isolated structure needs to have a system that behaves with a certain ductility and remains gravitationally stable in the event of an earthquake. This can be obtained by a passive control system, such as rubber bearings. The objective of this research is to design a two-story single family structure. Additionally, design, construction, and testing of rubber bearings were performed. For the design of the bearings, a compilation of information was done between different standards and studies in the area of seismic isolation. Four rubber bearings with different materials were built to determine the influence of the material on performance. Two with virgin material and two with mixed material (40% virgin elastomer and 60% recycled elastomer) following the guidance of a manufacturing protocol. Subsequently, a test protocol was developed to set the bearings under the same load conditions. They showed good behavior when subjected to a series of cycles with load inversion at 50%, 100%, 110%, and 140% of the design displacement. After this, the characteristic curves were plotted. From the test results, it was found that the design method for rubber bearings is effective for both materials virgin and recycled up to 100% of the design displacement. The rubber bearings with recycled material presented breaks and detachment of the anchor plates with 140% of the design displacement. However, these results are positive for continuing with the study of recycled materials in the construction of passive type isolation systems.