BASE ISOLATION IN THE ۲IsT CENTURY

Seismic isolation technology in the United States today is applied almost entirely to buildings housing sensitive internal equipment. The isolators used in these applications are large, expensive, and heavy. To extend this valuable earthquake-resistant strategy to housing and commercial buildings, it is necessary to reduce both the cost and the weight of the isolators. Recent research has demonstrated that this can be achieved by eliminating the steel reinforcing plates commonly used in elastomeric bearings and replacing them with a fiber reinforcement. This paper presents a model that accurately predicts the stiffness and damping properties of a fiber-reinforced bearing.