The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

The development of energy-absorbing devices for aseismic base isolation systems

Kelly, James M.; Tsztoo, David F.

UCB/EERC-78/01, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1978-01, 44 pages (.pdf) (530/K38/1978D)

This report describes the behavior of mild steel energy-absorbing devices that can be used in earthquake isolation systems. The devices are rigid under service-type loading, but yield and absorb energy under large earthquake-type loading. The devices are shown to have a substantial hysteretic energy-absorbing capacity over a useful life in excess of 300 cycles, far exceeding any load duration which can be expected from earthquake loadings. The hysteresis loops developed by sinusoidal loading of the devices effectively bounded the loops obtained by the random loading of the devices. The actual incorporation of the devices in a structural steel frame is being investigated in ongoing research.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-78-01.pdf (5 MB)