Cs Lewangamage

Characteristics of rubber used in seismic isolation by digital and thermal image analysis

The use of seismic isolation rubber bearings in bridges and buildings provides a very effective passive method to suppress hazard from earthquake-induced vibration. Carbons filled natural rubber and high damping rubber (HDR) are smart civil engineering materials especially used in those bearings. This study is to develop algorithms for large strain field measurements in rubber material by image analysis and to experimentally investigate temperature dependency on rubber behavior under cyclic loadings by thermal image analysis. A correlation-based template-matching algorithm is developed in displacement field measurements in continua so that a large strain field can be measured. Possible unrealistic displacement vectors present in measured displacement fields are eliminated by new algorithm in which the deformation should satisfy the continuity condition. The algorithms are successfully employed in strain field measurement of rubber materials reported here as experimental verification. Local deformational characteristics of rubber were also studied; results are shown by the analysis. Finally, a failure criterion was proposed for the rubber. The use of infrared thermographs to measure temperature field is described. This paper will discuss its application in HDR temperature field measurements under cyclic loadings. In HDR, various changes of properties were investigated with respect to the frequencies of loadings and its body temperature; results are shown by the analysis.