16. Friction Pendulum System - Seismic Isolation - High Load Multi-Rotational Bearings


For RM Bridge inside OpenBridge Designer, as shown in the pictures below, the Friction Pendulum System - FPS - is a support device that provides the structure with some level of Seismic Isolation, it is also known as High Load Multi-Rotational - HLMR bearings

       

The necessary properties need to be provided as input for static and dynamic stiffness and for element hysteresis. Then, in this example, for the static analysis, as expected, the result should be the same; therefore, a time-history analysis is performed to show the non-linear behavior of the FPS when loaded in the horizontal direction. The results for nodal displacements and force against deformation, in the figures below, show the seismic isolation and the hysteretic behavior that can be modeled in RM Bridge for complex nonlinear time history analysis.

      

More information about the implementation and the specific example can be found in the FAQ document and the .tcl file can be loaded for user reference.