Coned Disc Spring Compound Vertical Isolation: Testing and Modelling

ABSTRACT

To improve the isolation property of conventional-coned disc spring isolation (CDSI) bearings, novel coned-disc spring compound vertical isolation (CDSCI) bearings were proposed. These combined the conventional CDSI bearings with high–damping viscoelastic (HDV) layers. Static loading tests, dynamic loading tests, and temperature dependence tests were conducted to study the mechanical performance of the CDSCI bearings. The test results indicated that HDV layers can enhance the conventional CDSI bearings’ energy-dissipation capacity effectively; the preloading displacement has a positive correlation relationship with the equivalent damping ratio and equivalent stiffness of the CDSCI bearings; and the dynamic loading amplitude has a negative correlation with the equivalent damping ratio of the CDSCI bearings, while it has a positive correlation relationship with the equivalent stiffness. As the ambient temperature increases, the equivalent damping ratio and equivalent stiffness of the CDSCI bearing decrease. Furthermore, the mechanical behavior of the CDSCI bearing was simulated using a modified Bouc–Wen model. Last, seismic responses of a typical CDSCI-isolated structure was investigated using time history analysis. Numerical results show that force responses of a structure can be reduced by CDSCI bearings effectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Coned-disc spring
• high–damping viscoelastic material
• equivalent stiffness
• equivalent damping ratio
• loading frequency
• modified Bouc–Wen model
• seismic analysis

Additional information

Funding

The writers gratefully acknowledge the partial support of this research by National Key Research and Development Program of China Grant No. [2017YFC0703600], the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants No. [51708257] and No. [51708258].