Comparative Assessment on the Rocking Response of Seismically Base-Isolated Rigid Blocks

In this work we investigate the rocking response of the Riace bronze A, a slender statue modelled as an equivalent rigid body freestanding on an isolated base supported on: (a) Steel Reinforced Elastomeric Bearings, (b) Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Bearings, (c) Flat Surface Sliding Bearings, and (d) Curved Surface Sliding Bearings. The dynamic responses of such devices contribute significantly to the rocking response of the base-isolated rigid block, so it is necessary to accurately predict the complex hysteretic behaviors of the above-mentioned devices. For this reason, an innovative uniaxial phenomenological model has been used. The proposed hysteretic model is described by an algebraic equation that does not require iterations to evaluate the state variables, namely the device restoring forces. Moreover, the proposed hysteretic model is based on a set of parameters with a clear mechanical significance. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of Marco Tanganelli and Stefania Viti