Rekayasa Sipil Volume V, Nomor 2, Oktober 2009 ISSN : 1858-3695

SEISMIC BEHAVIOUR OF STEEL FRAME STRUCTURES WITH

ELASTOMERIC HOLLOW RUBBER REARINGS

Oleh

Jati Sunaryati

Jurusan Teknik Sipil Fakultas Teknik Universitas Andalas

Kampus Limau Manis Padang

ABSTRACT

Base Isolator has been used widely around the world in order to reduce damage in structures when earthquake
occurs. The isolator should be simple, inexpensive, easy to install and effective in isolating the superstructure
from the earthquake ground motions. For effective base isolator, the vertical stiffness should be flexible and the
horizontal stiffness should be large. The displacement allows in base isolators will prevent the movement of the
ground being transmitted to the structure, provide the necessary frequency to the structure and internal devices.
Elastomeric rubber bearing is a type of base isolator consists of rubber and steel layers working together as a
composite material to withstand vertical loads from the self weight of a building above it, and horizontal loads from
earthquake. The elastomeric hollow rubber bearing is a type of base isolator which has been changed from the
original base isolator. The base isolator has been studied using Finite Element Modeling. The aim of the design is
to improve the performance by having larger vertical loads. The products still maintain its required horizontal
stiffness, flexibility and stability to act as an isolator to the structure from the ground movement due to
earthquakes. The base isolators investigated have been applied to the unbraced steel frame to investigate the
seismic behaviour of the structure. The analysis takes into account the behaviour of the structure under seismic
loading. Two buildings were designed and analyzed; one with conventional base isolator and one with a hollow
base-isolated structure. Findings showed of a reduction in accelerations of the structure and increase in period
and displacements. The finding shows that hollow base isolation with the same geometry behave better than the
conventional base isolator.

Key words : Base isolator, hollow base isolator, elastomeric rubber bearing, earthquake

INTRODUCTION energy entering a structure is known as base

Seismic activity begins from the ground to
the superstructure and it is exposed large
amounts of energy are released. Some of the
energy is absorbed by the structure. As the
structure absorbs this energy and exceeds its
elastic limit, it begins to have structural
damage. Possible damage includes permanent
deformation due to yielding in connections and
frame members as well as energy dissipated
during cracking and fracturing. The amount of
structural damage sustained by a building can
be directly related to the amount of energy that
goes into the structure. Therefore in recent
years, researcher began looking for way to
reduce the amount of energy that a structure
absorbs. One method that lowers the amount of
isolation.
Other new engineering techniques for
modifying the structure to achieve better
earthquake resistance are available below:
Diaphragms: Floors and roofs can be used
as rigid horizontal planes, or diaphragms, to
transfer lateral forces to vertical resisting
elements such as walls or frames.
Shear Walls: Strategically located stiffened
walls are shear walls and are capable of
transferring lateral forces from floors and
roofs to the foundation.
Braced Frames: Vertical frames that
transfer lateral loads from floors and roofs
to foundations. Like shear walls, Braced
Frames are designed to take lateral loads

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Rekayasa Sipil Volume V, Nomor 2, Oktober 2009
but are used where shear walls are
impractical.
Moment-Resistant Frames: Column/ beam
joints in moment-resistant frames are
designed to take both shear and bending
thereby eliminating the space limitations of
solid shear walls or braced frames. The
column/beam joints are carefully designed
to be stiff yet to allow some deformation for
energy dissipation taking advantage of the
ductility of steel (reinforced concrete can be
designed as a Moment-Resistant Frame as
well).
Energy-Dissipating Devices: Making the
building structure more resistive will
increase shaking which may damage the
contents or the function of the building.
Energy-Dissipating Devices are used to
minimize shaking. Energy will dissipate if
ductile materials deform in a controlled way.
An example is Eccentric Bracing whereby
the controlled deformation of framing
members dissipates energy. However, this
will not eliminate or reduce damage to
building contents. A more direct solution is
the use of energy dissipating devices that
function like shock absorbers in a moving
car. The period of the building will be
lengthened and the building will "ride out"
the shaking within a tolerable range.
In base isolation, the seismic design
strategy involves separating the building from
the foundation and acts to absorb shock. As the
ground moves, the building moves at a slower
pace because the isolators dissipate a large
part of the shock. The building must be
designed to act as a unit, or "rigid box", of
appropriate height (to avoid overturning) and
have flexible utility connections to
ISSN : 1858-3695
accommodate movement at its base. Base
Isolation is easiest to incorporate in the design
of new construction. Existing buildings may
require alterations to be made more rigid to
move as a unit with foundations separated from
the superstructure to insert the Base Isolators.
Additional space (a "moat") must be provided
for horizontal displacement (the whole building
will move back and forth a whole foot or more).
Base Isolation retrofit is a costly operation that
is most commonly appropriate in high asset
value facilities and may require partial or the full
removal of building occupants during
installation.
The base isolated structure has an extra set
of structural element placed between the base
of the structure and its foundation to decouple
the structure from potentially damaging
earthquake motion. These elements are often
made of some type of rubber bearings, which
will now be referred to as base isolator.
An original base isolator is composed of
rubber layers that provide flexibility and steel
reinforcing plates that provide vertical load-
carrying capacity. At the top and bottom of
these layers are steel laminated plates that
distribute the vertical loads and transfer the
shear force to the internal rubber layer. On the
top and bottom of steel laminated plate is a
rubber cover that provides protection for the
steel laminated plates.
The need for a base isolator is stiff under
low levels of lateral loads (e.g. wind) but flexible
under higher levels (e.g. earthquake). The
approach for increasing flexibility of isolator to a
structure is to provide the stiffness of the
isolator. The low horizontal stiffness allows the
isolators to displace laterally, which dissipates a
portion of the energy, and the high vertical
stiffness allows the isolators to carry the dead
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load of the structure that is resting upon them.
To provide the stiffness of the isolator, the
hollow base isolator has studied using finite
element method as a new model of elastomeric
rubber bearing.
This paper will describe the
understanding of base isolation in structure.
The main purpose of this paper is to explain the
seismic behaviour of steel frame structures
using elastomeric hollow rubber bearing. The
method for designing and analyzing
structures during this research will be described
in detail. The description of the methods will
then be followed by the results
interpretation of the analysis.
conclusions on using base isolation in structure
will be given.
Brief Historical Development of Seismic
Isolation
From Concise Oxford Dictionary, Kelly [3]
gives the meaning of base isolation as the state
of being separated and base as a part that
support from beneath or serves as a foundation
for an object or structure. From these literal
meanings, the structure as a building, bridge or
piece of equipment is separated from its
foundation. The original terminology of base
isolation is now more commonly knows as
seismic isolation.
The principle of base isolation was firstly
introduced by Johannes Avetican Calantarients
(1909) in Naeim and Kelly [1]. Calantarients
was a medical doctor from the northern English
city. Calantarients said the substantial
buildings can be put up in earthquake countries
on this principle with perfect safety since the
degree of severity of an earthquake loses its
significance through the existence of the
ISSN : 1858-3695
lubricated free joint. Calantarients had
submitted his patent application to the British
patent office for this construction method. To
reducing the force transmitted from earthquake
to the building, he proposed that the building be
basic built on his free joint and layer of fine sand,
mica or talc that would allow the building to
slide in an earthquake. It was an early example
of an earthquake resistant design strategy
known as base isolation (BI) or seismic
the isolation.
Although the first patents for base isolation
were in early 1900s, it was the 1970s before
and base isolation encouraged into the common of
Finally, structural engineering. Isolation was used on
bridges from the early 1970s and buildings
from the late 1970s. Bridges are a more natural
applicant for isolation than buildings because
they are often built with bearings separating the
superstructure from the substructure.
Most recent examples of isolated buildings
use multilayered Laminated Rubber Bearing
(LRB) with steel reinforcing layers as the load
carrying component of the system (Figure 1).
The reinforcing steel plates make the bearings
are very stiff in the vertical direction but are soft
in the horizontal direction, in that way producing
the isolation effect. To corporate damping into
these systems, sometimes the materials of
rubber were added with supplementary
damping element such as carbon block, oil or
resins, and other proprietary filler. We know the
bearings which using those materials as High
Damping Rubber Bearing (HDRB). Both of LRB
and HDRB are easy to manufacturing, have no
moving parts, are unaffected by time and resist
environmental degradation (Kelly, [4]). The first
building using this system in the United State is
Foothills Community Law and Justice Center as
showed in Figure 3.
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The most frequently used isolation system

is the lead plug rubber bearing (Figure 2).
These bearings are multilayered, laminated
elastomeric bearings with lead plugs inserted
into one or more circular holes. The lead plugs
are used to integrate damping into the isolation
system. Sometimes these isolations system are
use in combination with multilayered
elastomeric bearings (which do not have lead
Figure 3 Foothills Community Law and Justice
plugs).
Center, Rancho Cucamonga, California: the
first base-isolated building in the United States

The side of the articulated slider in contact

Figure 1 Laminated Rubber Bearing
with the spherical surface is coated with a low-
friction composite material. The other side of
the slider is also spherical, coated with stainless
steel, and sits in a spherical cavity, also coated
with the low-friction composite material. As the
slider moves over the spherical surface, it
causes the supported mass to rise and provides
the restoring force for the system. Friction
between the articulated slider and the spherical
surface generates damping in the isolators. The
effective stiffness of the isolator and the
isolation period of the structure are controlled
by the radius of curvature of the concave
surface.

Figure 2 Lead Plug Rubber Bearing

The second most common type of isolation

system uses friction pendulum system (FPS) as
shown in Figure 4. Kelly [5] explained that this
system combines a sliding action and a
restoring force by geometry. The FPS isolator
has an articulated slider that moves on a Figure 4 FPS scheme
stainless steel spherical surface.

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Another challenge of installation the
isolators in buildings are retrofitting in existing
buildings. City and County Building, Salt Lake
City, Utah, was the first building in the world to
be retrofitted using seismic isolation. This is the
5 story unreinforced masonry and stone
building was built in 1895 (Figure 5). Retrofit
with isolators was selected after numerous
attempts, as developing conventional shear wall
solutions were unsuccessful. The retrofit
solution was governed by the limited strength of
the existing building, and with the need to
minimize the impact of the retrofit scheme on
the historic exterior stone and interior bearing
walls, stairs and entry features of the building.
The isolation system was designed to limit the
forces in the superstructure so as to avoid the
need for major reconstruction of the building
above the isolators.
and brick masonry walls. The FPS isolators are
installed under the existing steel columns with
new concrete for each column and a new rigid
diaphragm system above the isolation level.
Nowadays, most base isolation applications
have focused on large structures with sensitive
or expensive contents, but there is an
increasing interest in the application of this
technology to public housing, schools and
hospitals in developing countries. The
challenge in such applications is to develop low
cost isolation systems that can be used in
conjunction with local construction methods,
such as masonry block and lightly reinforced
concrete frames. There are completed
demonstration projects in Italy, Chile, China,
Indonesia and Armenia (Taniwangsa, [10]). The
demonstration building in Indonesia (Figure 7)
was funded by the United Nations Industrial
Development Organization. In Malaysia, the
demonstration building was built by Malaysia
Palm Oil Rubber Board (MPORB) at Lahat Datu
(Figure 8).

Figure 5 City and County Building, Salt Lake

City, Utah: the first historic building retrofitted by
base isolation

Special retrofitting using FPS was done to

the Court of Appeals building (Figure 6) in San
Figure 6 The U.S. Court of Appeals Building in
Francisco (Amin and Mokha , 1995 in Kelly,
San Francisco, California: retrofitted by friction
[5]). This building was built in 1905, has five-
2
pendulum isolators
story, 32,516 m building survived the 1906 San
Francisco earthquake. The original structure is
a steel gravity frame with unreinforced granite

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possible maximum values of various controlling

quantities (such as shear strain) and also for
estimating the structural base shear, stability of
isolators, and possibility of uplift. After this
preliminary design process is completed,
examples of the final design of the isolators will
be ordered and subjected to the code-
mandated prototype test program. Depending
on the results of the prototype tests, the
preliminary design may or may not need to be
Figure 7 UNIDO demonstration base isolated
modified. In order to minimize the number of
building in Indonesia
iterations in the design, it is essential to have
accurate data and good design procedure the
isolation designer with the information needed
for making the preliminary design.
In this research, the design of isolated
building is currently governed by Uniform
Building Code (UBC-97). The underlying
philosophy of these codes is that an isolated
building designed using these regulations will
be expected to outperform fixed-base
Figure 8 MPORB demonstration base isolated
construction in moderate and large
building at Lahat Datu, Malaysia.
earthquakes. The intent of the code is not to
reduce the cost of the structure but to control
Design of Elastomeric Rubber Bearing damage to the structure and its contents by

The method to design of isolated structure taking advantages of the fact that seismic

has covered from many references such as isolation permits an elastic response in the

Naeim and Kelly [1] and Mayes [2]. It has been structure and low floor acceleration for large

largely used in many countries differing in earthquake input.

building tradition and technologies and a Base on the code and the references, two

number of these countries have published types of base isolators had been designed. The

guidelines on the subject. While the general one is with conventional elastomeric rubber

criteria of the technique are well established, bearing and the other is with an elastomeric

guidelines can differ in specific rules, analysis hollow rubber bearing. Both elastomeric rubber

procedures, design provisions, detailing bearings were applied to the steel frame as

prescriptions. isolators and analyzed using SAP2000.

The design process for an isolation system The dimension and the details of the

will generally begin with a preliminary design required original and hollow elastomeric bearing

using parameters from a previous project or are given in Figure 9 and 10.

from data from a manufacturer to estimate the

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controlled by the shape factor S. For a circular

2 mm
pad of diameter or radius R and the
thickness t:
1.2 mm
26.8 mm

R
26 mm S or S
2t 4t
30 mm
The horizontal stiffness, Kh, is:

AG
Figure 9 Original elastomeric rubber bearing Kh
h
5 mm 2 mm
where G is the shear modulus of the elastomer,
1.2 mm A is the full cross sectional area, and tr is the
26.8 mm
total thickness of the rubber.

26 mm
Ratio of vertical to horizontal stiffness is:
30 mm

Kv r2
31 2
Figure 10 Elastomeric hollow rubber bearing
Kh 2h
The design parameter of the
elastomeric rubber bearing was described at
While the elastomeric rubber bearing that
Table 1.
compound of natural rubber and steel layers
were used as isolator. The isolators are located
at the base of each first story column. Several Table 1. The design parameter of the
formulas used to define the stiffness and shape elastomeric rubber bearing
factor S (ratio of one bonded area of block to Original Elastomeric
Elastomeric Hollow
force free area). These factors are used in the Parameters
Rubber Rubber
designing of the bearing as a factor related to Bearing Bearing

its axial stiffness. The isolation systems are Vertical design load
25 25
(kN)
calculated using formula below;
Nominal shear
0.082 0.078
stiffness (kN/mm)
The vertical stiffness, Kv is
Nominal vertical
E A 13.256 13.234
stiffness (kN/mm)
Kv c
tr Nominal vertical
natural frequency 5.79 5.79
where A is the cross sectional area of the (Hz)
bearing, tr is the total thickness of rubber in the Safety factor 3.59 2.05
bearing, and Ec is the instantaneous Critical load (kN) 89.82 50.2
compression modulus of the rubber steel
Rollout instability
26 21
composite under the specified level of vertical (mm)
load. The value of Ec for a single rubber layer is

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Design of Isolation System There are four peak ground accelerations for
considering the design response spectra as
The elastomeric rubber bearings are
shown on Figure 13.
located under load bearing columns. There are
two types structures being analyzed, Frame A Spectral Acceleration on surface for SL2
(500-year return period)-Probabilistic Method
using original elastomeric rubber bearing and 0.3

PGA = 0.018g
Frame B using elastomeric hollow rubber 0.3 PGA = 0.020g

Spectral Acceleration (g)

PGA = 0.045g
bearing. Both of frames A and B have the same 0.2 PGA = 0.07g

size of for columns W6x12 and beams W10x12.

0.2

0.1

0.1

0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Period (s)

Figure 13 Spectra Acceleration for design

response spectrum

The time history data applied is shown on figure

14.

Figure 11 Three dimensional modeling of the

isolated structure

The frames were analyzed using SAP2000.

Two types of dynamic loads are applied; the
response spectra and time history. Figure 14. Time history function

RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS

Four types of results are discussed, the

moments and shear applied to the frame, the
displacements and the interstory drift of the
structure.

Moment and Shear of frames

The important consideration in designing
structure is the size of members to be used.
Figure 12 Two dimensional modeling of isolated
Figure 15 and Figure 16, shows the moment
structure
and shear of the frame respectively.

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Figure 18 Time history displacement function of

Figure 15 Shear force of frame
Frame B at top level

Figure 16 Moment force of frame

Figure 19 Deformed shape of mode shape 1

The displacement of the structure and
.
interstory drift

Time history displacement function of

Frame A and Frame B are shown in Figures 17
and 18 respectively. The mode shapes of the
structure are shown in Figures 19 and 20.

Figure 20. Deformed shape of mode shape 2

The absolute displacements of both structures

are shown on Table 2. Table 3 shows the
interstory drift of Frame A
Figure 17 Time history displacement function of
Frame A at top level

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Table 2. Displacement of structure Uo(t) Seismic Design Handbook. Second Edition.

Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic Publisher,.
Level Frame B (m) Frame A (m)
Naaseh, Simin. SE., 2001. Practical Solutions
Base 0.0009 0.0014
for Seismic Isolation, Lessons Learned. 5th
First 0.0029 0.0051
World Congress on Joints, Bearings and
Roof 0.0049 0.0056
Seismic Systems for Concrete Structures. 7 .
Rome, Italy.
Table 3. Interstory drift Kelly, James M., 2002. Seismic Isolation
System for Developing Countries. Earthquake
Level Frame B (m) Frame A (m)
First 0.002 0.0037 Spectra.
second 0.002 0.0005 Kelly, J.M., 2004. Chapter 11: Seismic Isolation.
In: Bozorgnia, Yousef., and Bartero, Vitelmi.,
ed. Earthquake Engineering, From Engineering
CONCLUSIONS Seismology to Performance Based
Engineering. Florida: CRC Press.
One method to reduce the energy going Doudoumis, I.N., Gravalas, F., Doudoumis, N.I.,
into a structure when the earthquake occurred 2005, Analytical Modeling of Elastomeric Lead
was with practice based isolated structure. Rubber Bearings with Use of Finite Element
Base isolated structure has ability to reduce the Micromodels, 5th GRACM International
magnitude of the interstory drift and associated Congress on Computational Mechanics,
moment on column and shear at the structure, Limasol,
which allows for the use of smaller members. Baratta, A., Corbi, I., 2002, On the Optimal
Two kind geometric elastomeric rubber bearing Design of Structural B.I. Devices, NSCM 15,
has analyzed. One was the original elastomeric 15th Nordic Seminar on Computational
rubber bearing and the other ones is Mechanics, Aalborg, Denmark.
elastomeric hollow rubber bearing. The aim of Kunde, M.C., and Jangid, R.S., 2003. Seismic
changing the geometric elastomeric is to reduce Behavior of Isolated Bridges: A State of the Art
the interstory drift, which would maximize the Review. Electronic Journal of Structural
comfort of the building occupants. Therefore, Engineering.
base isolation achieved the goals that were set Jati Sunaryati, Azlan Adnan, Mohd. Zulkifli bin
at the beginning of the research. Tan Sri Mohd Ghazali, 2004.Mechanic
Behaviour of Elastomeric Hollow Base Isolator
using Finite Element Modeling, SEPKA 2004,
REFERENCES
Fakulty Kejuruteraan Awam, University
Naeim, Farzad and James Kelly., 1999.,
Teknology Malaysia, Johor Bahru
Designed of Seismic Isolated Structure: From
Taniwangsa, Wendy., 2002. Seismic
Theory to Practice. New York, John Wiley and
Performance of a Base Isolated Demonstration
Sons, Inc.
Building. Earthquake Spectra.
L Mayes, Ronald., 2001, Design of Structure
with Seismic Isolation in Naeim, Farzad. The

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