An experimental study on the shear property dependency of high-damping rubber bearings

This paper investigates the characteristics of high-damping rubber bearings (HDRBs) through various prototype tests. The characteristics were dependent on the displacements, number of load cycles, frequencies, vertical pressure, temperature, shear deformation capability, and vertical stiffness. The prototype tests showed that the displacement was the most influential factor on the characteristics of the HDRB. The effective stiffness and equivalent damping of the HDRB decreased with the displacement and increased with the frequency. The effective stiffness decreased at higher vertical pressure, while the equivalent damping increased. The equivalent damping was more dependent on the vertical pressure than the effective stiffness. The results show that careful examination is required to design the effective stiffness and equivalent damping ratio while considering the dependencies of the design displacement and excitation velocity.