Feasibility Study of Base Isolation System based on Magneto-Rheological Elastomers (MREs)

Abstract

The vibration control of building structures under seismic loading is a very critical issue in the safety of the structure. Base isolation is quite an effective and practical solution to this issue. Among various kinds of base isolation systems, passive and active systems have their own limitations. The proposed magneto-rheological elastomer(MRE)-based base isolation system eliminates the limitation of passive system by being adaptable to various loading conditions. Moreover, the proposed system is more applicable than active base isolation because of its less power requirements. This thesis presents a feasibility study of MREs as the base isolation bearings. In order to investigate the applicability of the proposed system to the full-scale structure, the behavior of the MRE under various flux and loading condition in shear mode should be first completely understood. Therefore, this work includes dynamic characterization of MREs consisting of dynamic testing in shear mode and the generation of a numerical model of the MRE so as to completely and precisely predict the dynamic behavior of the MRE in shear mode. This work also includes the numerical simulations for verification of the control performance of a newly proposed system with two different control algorithms.