Stability of Elastomeric Bearings

Elastomeric rubber bearings are widely used for seismic applications to minimize the structural damage typically found in buildings and bridges in the event of an earthquake. This research has two main objectives, first to increase the available data related to the stability limits of elastomeric bearings and second to compare two different approaches of testing bearing stability. The first, stability method one, subjected the bearings to a constant horizontal displacement and applied an increasing axial load to measure its stability. The second, stability method two, subjected the bearings to a constant axial load and increased the horizontal displacement until the critical load was reached. Characterization tests were also conducted periodically in the test log. Two types of elastomeric rubber bearings are considered for this study: low damping rubber and lead rubber bearings. The data is then compared with numerical analysis.