Development of New Materials for Seismic Isolation and Passive Energy Dissipation - Part. I: Experimental Tests on New Compound Elastomeric Bearings

In this paper an outline of a huge test program carried out at the Laboratory of Testing Materials and Structures of the DiSGG at Potenza, is given. About 500 high damping elastomeric bearings (HDEB) have been tested, and the mechanical and hysteretic characteristics of both new and artificially aged bearings have been evaluated. Three different groups (A, B, C) of devices have been tested, each group being relevant to a different compound based on a different elastomer. Each group of device is constituted by 24 different specimens, whose differences are relevant to dimensions, shape (circular or square), primary and secondary shape factor. In this paper the geometric characteristics of all the bearings are illustrated (dimensions, shape, thickness and number of the elastomeric layers, thickness of the steel shims, primary and secondary shape factor). Afterwards, the types of test performed on the specimens, the test machines, the instrumentation layout, and the control and data acquisition systems used, are described. Particular attention is devoted to the description of the accelerated ageing procedures, used to evaluate the durability of the compounds and of the devices.