Coupled structural and heat conduction FE analysis of laminated high damping rubber bearing

A framework for coupled structural and heat conduction finite element analysis is developed for laminated high damping rubber bearings (HDRBs), and coupled analyses are conducted for full-scale tests of an HDRB using the shaking table at E-Defense. An HDRB, which is used in base-isolated buildings, is modeled using hexahedral solid elements. The high damping rubber is modeled as an overlaid viscohyperelastic and elastic-plastic constitutive model. However, material parameters are identified using the results for the HDRB subjected to one-directional loading, and temperature dependences of the parameters are taken into account by a simple method based on empirical formulae for the HDRB because no cyclic coupon test was conducted for the high damping rubber used in the full-scale tests. The combined structural and heat conduction analyses are conducted for a number of loading cases. The same hexahedral mesh of the HDRB is used for both structural and heat conduction analyses. Analysis results are presented for a one-directional cyclic loading test, two-directional loading test with elliptical orbit, and earthquake loading test. The results obtained by the tests and those obtained by the coupled structural and heat conduction analyses are compared. The coupling effect of the mechanical and thermal behaviors is clearly shown in the analysis results, although reductions of the equivalent stiffness and damping are not large because the number of loading cycles in the present analyses is limited.