Practical Simulation of Restoring Force of SMA-Rubber Bearing
Zhuang Peng1, 2, Xue Suduo3
1. School of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China; 2. Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture Beijing Higher Institution Engineering Research Center of Structural Engineering and New Materials, Beijing 100044, China; 3. College of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Beijing University of technology, Beijing 100124, China
Abstract:SMA-rubber bearing is a type of seismic isolation device which can dissipate energy by using hysteretic effect from the superelasticity of shape memory alloy (SMA) material. Based on the isolator’s concept design, a series of pseudo-static test of the SMA-rubber bearing are carried out and the excellent seismic isolation and energy dissipation performances are verified by the experimental results. To promote the structural engineers’ mastery of the seismic isolation characteristics of the SMA-rubber bearing, least square fitting and differential restoring model commonly used in structural software are considered to simulate the horizontal force of the isolator. After that, the restoring force-displacement hysteresis loops and the values of performance parameters from the differential restoring model are compared with those from the experimental data. It can be found that experimental results match closely with those obtained from the above-mentioned model. Thererfore, introduction of such a practical method contributes to establishment of the SMA-rubber isolator element with the existing structural analysis software and application of the SMA-based isolation bearings in engineering structures.