Theoretical Studies of the XY-FP Seismic Isolation Bearing for Bridges

The XY-friction pendulum (XY-FP) bearing is a modified friction pendulum that consists of two perpendicular steel rails with opposing concave surfaces and a connector. The connector resists tensile forces, allows independent sliding in the two orthogonal directions and enables small relative rotation of the rails about a vertical axis. Theoretical analyses were undertaken to study applications of XY-FP bearings to bridges. Two of the key features of the XY-FP bearing for the seismic isolation of bridges are: (1) resistance to tensile axial loads and (2) opportunity to provide a different period of isolation in each principal direction of the isolated structure. Numerical analyses on an XY-FP isolated bridge with different isolation periods in the principal directions subjected to near-field ground motions demonstrated the effectiveness of XY-FP bearings. Furthermore, numerical analyses that investigated the sensitivity of XY-FP isolation system response to differences in the coefficients of friction of the bearings demonstrated that bounding analysis using upper and lower estimates of the coefficients of friction will generally provide conservative estimates of displacements and shear forces for isolation systems with nonuniform isolator properties.