The positive effect of seismic isolation systems on the originally destructive power of severe earthquakes is resulting in the first line from the decoupling mechanism but also from the capability to dissipate energy. Additionally to the achieved reduction of the earthquake impact actions due to the isolation effect a further reduction is resulting from the damping behavior, that apart from that has to take the task, to mitigate the induced relative deformations to an acceptable level. However it the damping level is set to high, cumulative displacements combined with a drifting out of the reference position during the event could be the result. Moreover the residual displacements after an earthquake arouse to an undesired level regarding the possible occurrence of follow-earthquakes. To prevent this trend is the task of an adequate self-centering capability. In particular this is valid for systems obtaining their energy dissipation capacity not from viscous damping effect characterized by ist proportionality to the velocity, as this is the case for sliding pendulum bearings. The criteria available to this date to ensure an adequate self-centering capacity are in regard to sliding pendulum bearings are not delivering satisfying results. In order to get more information about the real behavior of sliding isolation pendulum bearings during an earthquake event an three-dimensional but also simplified FE-model will be generated with the aim to use a minimum of numerical computation power. Based on the subsequently carried out parametric study it is shown that the current available criteria are covering the real effects in the case of sliding isolation pendulum bearings only in an insufficient way. In the consequence a new criterion is suggested, that allows to determine a maximum allowable coefficient of friction in order to preserve a sufficient self-centering capacity.    «

The positive effect of seismic isolation systems on the originally destructive power of severe earthquakes is resulting in the first line from the decoupling mechanism but also from the capability to dissipate energy. Additionally to the achieved reduction of the earthquake impact actions due to the isolation effect a further reduction is resulting from the damping behavior, that apart from that has to take the task, to mitigate the induced relative deformations to an acceptable level. However i...    »