Performance of high-damping rubber bearings for seismic isolation of residential buildings in Turkey

Abstract The applicability of high-damping rubber bearings for seismic isolation of residential buildings in Turkey is studied using numerical and experimental approaches. Seismic isolation system composed of high-damping rubber bearings is designed according to the recently updated Turkish Building Seismic Code-2018 (TBSC2018). Three model buildings of different height at assumed seismically active area are chosen from an actual building database, on which, equivalent lateral force procedure, and time history analyses are carried out. The seismic responses of the buildings are evaluated and the seismic isolation system's efficiency is confirmed. It is pointed out that the requirements in the new code in terms of the maximum allowable shear strain of elastomeric isolators are excessively conservative for those isolators with much larger capacity which is verified by sufficient test data, and as a result, designed isolator size becomes larger than necessary from a practical aspect. In order to verify the isolator design without compliance of shear strain limitation in the code, full-scale prototypes of high-damping rubber bearings are specially designed, developed and are subjected to dynamic loading test under test protocol specified in the code. The specific values of test conditions, such as compressive force, shear displacement and frequency, are developed referring several projects in Turkey. The results are comprehensively discussed and the applicability of high-damping rubber bearing for seismic isolation of residential buildings in Turkey is concluded with numerical and experimental approaches and a possible modification of TBSC2018 regarding maximum shear strain is proposed.