Comparison of Modeling Approaches for Lead Rubber

Bearings in a Base-Isolated Multi-Span Highway Bridge.

M. K. Razzaq


Civil Engineering Department, National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

Y. Okui
Department of Environmental Science and Civil Engineering, Saitama University, Japan

A.R. Bhuiyan
Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Chittagong 4349, Bangladesh

H. Mitamura
Civil Engineering Research Institute for Cold Region, PWRI, Sapporo, Japan

T. Imai
Chairman Technical Committee, Rubber Bearing Association, Tokyo, Japan


ABSTRACT:
A nonlinear dynamic analysis of a five span continuous base isolated bridge with lead rubber bearings (LRBs) is
carried out for six different strong ground motions of level-2 earthquake to investigate the effect of modeling
techniques on the seismic response of the bridge. Three analytical models of LRBs are considered for comparison: the
conventional bilinear model, a rate-dependent rheology model, and a proposed simplified model. In the proposed
simplified model, the elasto-plastic behavior along with strain hardening at high strain levels is considered. Model
parameters for LRBs are identified from experimental results at room temperature (+23
o
C). The dynamic responses of
the isolation bearings and the rotation responses of the plastic hinge in concrete piers are compared for different
modeling. Finally, a comparative assessment of the bridge responses suggests that a careful selection of isolation
bearings model is vital for rational prediction of the seismic response of isolated bridge systems.

Keywords: Nonlinear dynamic analysis, seismic response, isolation bearings, isolated bridge system.
1. INTRODUCTION

The base-isolation system with laminated rubber bearings is considered to be an efficient approach for
mitigating seismic damage for structures and equipment and has proven to be reliable and cost effective
(Kelly, 1997). Three types of rubber bearings; natural rubber bearings (RBs), high damping rubber bearings
(HDRBs), and lead rubber bearings (LRBs) are commonly adopted to obtain the desired base isolation
effect. The isolation bearings are generally fabricated by laminating rubber layers with alternating steel
plates. In LRBs, lead plugs are additionally inserted through the height of the bearing to enhance the
damping properties (Robinson, 1982).

There have been several studies in the past to explore the mechanical behavior of the isolation bearings.
These studies revealed the existence of strong strain rate-dependent hysteresis along with nonlinear elasto-
plastic behaviors with strain hardening observed in HDRBs (Abe et al. 2004, DallAsta and Ragni 2006,
Hwang et al. 2002 and Bhuiyan et al. 2009a). Motivated by the experimental results of HDRBs, an elasto-
visco-plastic rheology model has been developed (Bhuiyan et al. 2009a) and the same rheology model is
applied to LRBs in previous work (Bhuiyan et al. 2009b). However, the experimental observation exhibits
comparatively weak rate-dependent stress response of LRBs in comparison with those of HDRBs
(Robinson 1982 and Bhuiyan et al. 2009b). Considering some aspect of the experimental observations of
LRBs, Robinson (1982) has proposed a bilinear model for representing the hysteresis behavior of LRBs,

which is conceptually the same as that recommended for isolation bearings in Japanese specifications of
highway bridges (JRA 2002). However, the strain hardening features of the bearings as evidently observed
in the experiments (Abe et al., 2004; Bhuiyan et al., 2009b; Kikuchi and Aiken, 1997) cannot be well
reproduced by the available models. In-order to avoid complexity of the rheology model for LRBs and to
make it rational for design purpose; a simplified model has been proposed in this study by excluding the
overstress response of the existing rheology model (Bhuiyan et al., 2009a; 2009b). The novelty of the
proposed simplified model is its capability of capturing the nonlinear elasto-plastic behavior along with
strain hardening features of the bearings at high strain levels.

The objective of the current study is to investigate the effects of modeling of isolation bearings on the
seismic response of bridge by conducting the nonlinear dynamic analysis of a multi-span continuous
highway bridge. Lead rubber bearings (LRBs) considered in this study are modeled by the conventional
design bilinear model for LRBs as specified by Japanese specifications for highway bridges (JRA 2002),
the rate-dependent rheology model (Bhuiyan et al., 2009a; 2009b) and the proposed simplified model for
comparison. Finally, a comparative assessment of the bridge responses shows that modeling of isolation
bearings has a noticeable effect on the seismic responses of a bridge.


2. MODELING OF BRIDGE

2.1 Physical Model

Figure 1 shows the details of the physical model of the bridge comprising of a five-span continuous steel-
concrete composite girder bridge isolated by laminated lead rubber bearings. The isolation bearings are
placed between the steel girders and top of the piers. The dimensions of this model bridge including rubber
bearings were determined by designing in accordance with Japanese Specifications of Highway Bridges
(JRA 2002). The superstructure consists of 260 mm continuous composite slab, covered by 80 mm of
asphalt pavement supported on two continuous steel I-section girders. The depth of the continuous steel
girder is 2200 mm. The substructure consists of reinforced concrete piers and footings supported on pile
foundations. The dimensions and material properties of the bridge deck, piers with footings are given in
Table 1 and those of the isolation bearings are presented in Table 2.

2.2 Analytical Model

The analytical model of the bridge system is shown in Figure 2. The entire structural system is
approximated as a 2-D frame. The superstructure is idealized as an elastic beam. The plastic behavior of
piers is expected to be concentrated at the bottom of piers, where plastic hinges are located. The plastic
hinges of piers are modeled by the tri-linear Takeda model (Takeda et al. 1970). The superstructure, the pier
cap, the pier body except the plastic zone, and the footing are modeled using simple elastic beam elements.
The foundation and soil-structure interaction are idealized by a set of linear translational and rotational
springs. The superstructure and substructure of the bridge are modeled as a lumped mass system divided
into a number of small discrete segments. Each adjacent segment is connected by a node and at each node
two degrees of freedom are considered: horizontal translation and rotation. The vertical displacement of the
piers is restrained as no significant axial shortening is expected. In order to describe the mechanical
behavior of LRBs, three types of analytical models of the bearings are used in the study: the rate dependent
rheology model as developed by the authors (Bhuiyan et al. 2009a; 2009b) the proposed simplified model

and the design bilinear model as specified in JRA (2002). These models are briefly discussed in the
following sections.

(a)















(b) (c) (d)

Figure 1: Description of the prototype bridge (a) longitudinal view (b) transverse section of a typical pier,
(c) longitudinal section of a typical pier, and (d) Transverse section of the superstructure. H1 =
3000, H2 = 5600, H3 = 2000, F = 2200; all dimensions are in mm.

Table 1: Dimensions and material properties of the piers
Properties
Specifications
Pier S1 & S2 Pier P1 to P4
Cross-section of the pier cap (mm
2
) B1 x W1 3300 x 9600 2000 x 9600
Cross-section of the pier body (mm
2
) B2 x W2 3300 x 6000 2000 x 6000
Cross-section of the footing (mm
2
) B3 x W3 5000 x 8000 5000 x 8000
Number of piles/pier 4
Youngs modulus of concrete (MPa) 25000
Youngs modulus of steel (MPa) 200000



Figure 2: Analytical model of a complete bridge.

Table 2: Geometry and material properties of the isolation bearings
Properties Specifications
Cross-section (mm
2
) 650 x 650
Number of rubber layers 6
Thickness of one rubber layer (mm) 13.54
Thickness of steel layer (mm) 2.3
Nominal shear Modulus (MPa) 1.2
Number of lead plugs for LRB 4
Diameter of lead plug for LRB (mm) 34.5


2.3 Isolation Bearings Modeling
2.3.1 Rheology Model
The rheology model (Bhuiyan et al. 2009a; 2009b) employed in the subsequent numerical analysis is
illustrated in Figure 3(a), wheret and are the average shear stress and shear strain of rubber layers,
respectively.

The model comprises three branches: The first branch consisting of a spring (Element A) and a slider
(Element S) represents the elasto-plastic response (
ep
t ), the second branch containing a spring (Element B)
represents the nonlinear elastic response (
ee
t ), and these two branches together constitute the equilibrium
response. On the other hand, a spring (Element C) along with the previous two branches represents the
instantaneous response and the dashpot (Element D) represents the overstress (
oe
t ) resulting from the rate-


( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
d oe u l u l
tanh exp
2
1
exp
2
1
A q A A q A A + + =
dependent effect. The mathematical description of the model (Bhuiyan et al., 2009a) is briefly stated in
Equation 1.









(a) (b)
Figure 3: Model of the isolation bearing (a) Rheology model. (b) Simplified model.

(1a)

with (1b)

(1c)

with (1d)


(1e)

where, C
i
(i = 1 to 4),
cr
t , m, A
l
, A
u
, q, n, and are parameters of the model to be determined from
experimental data, and (Bhuiyan et al., 2009a). However, for the rheology model of LRBs, the
parameter A in Eq. (1d) is assumed to be constant on the basis of experimental results (Bhuiyan et al.
2009b). The other equations remain the same as described in an earlier work (Bhuiyan et al., 2009a).

2.3.2 Simplified Model with Hardening

A comparison of the stress-strain responses obtained from sinusoidal tests at room temperature (+23
o
C)
revealed the existence of a weak rate-dependency in LRBs (Bhuiyan et al. 2009b). All these observations
( ) ( ) ( )
c oe ee a ep
+ + =
a
C
1 ep
=

< =
= =
cr ep s
cr ep s


for 0
for 0

( ) sgn C C
m
3 2 ee
+ =
c 4 oe
C = ( )
d
n
o
d
oe

sgn =
sec / 1 =
o

suggest the promise of further simplification of the general rheology model. Essentially, such simplification
can be feasible by preserving the nonlinear elasto-plastic branches of the rheology model (Figure 3a).
Figure 3(b) presents a simplified structure of the rheology model. In this model, the total shear stress is
decomposed into two contributions associated with a nonlinear elastic stress ( )
ee
t and an elasto-plastic
stress ( )
ep
t , and hence the third branch ( )
oe
t of the rheology model is discarded. In this case, five
parameters are required to represent the stress-strain responses of the bearings: the
1
C parameter
corresponding to the initial shear modulus;
2
C the post yield shear modulus;
cr
t the yield strength, and the
parameters
3
C and m

that are used to represent the strain hardening property of the bearing at high strain
levels.

2.3.3 Bilinear Model
Some specifications have specified guidelines for using the bilinear model in order to represent the
nonlinear inelastic hysteretic property of LRBs (AASHTO, 2000 and JRA, 2002). The bilinear model of the
bearings can be recovered after simplification of the rheology model (Bhuiyan et al. 2009b). The simplified
structure of the model is formed by using a linear elastic response ( )
ee
t and an elasto-plastic response ( )
ep
t
only and hence the third branch ( )
oe
t of the model is discarded. In this case, three parameters are required
to represent the bilinear relationships of stress-strain responses of the bearings: the
1
C parameter
corresponding to the initial shear modulus,
2
C the post yield shear modulus, and
cr
t the yield strength of
the bearings.

2.4 Parameters Identification
The sinusoidal loading corresponds to a shear displacement history conducted at amplitude of 1.75 shear
strain with a natural frequency of 0.5 Hz used to identify the parameters of the models to be used in the
seismic analysis of the bridge. In order to remove the Mullins softening effect (Mullins, 1969) of the
bearings, the 4
th
cycle shear stress-strain responses are used in the simulation.

For investigating the effect of modeling of isolation bearings on the seismic response of the bridge, a set of
parameters at room temperature (+23
o
C) are evaluated by best fitting the model parameters with respect to
the experimental data. Table 3 shows the parameters of the rheology, simplified and the design models for
LRBs at +23
o
C temperature. Figure 4 shows the simulated shear stress-strain responses of the lead rubber
bearings as obtained using the experiment behavior of the bearings and the rheology model, the proposed
simplified model and design models on the basis of the computed parameters at room (+23
o
C) temperature
conditions.

Table 3: Parameters of the lead rubber bearing at room temperature conditions (+23
o
C)
C
1

MPa
C
2

MPa
C
3

MPa
C
4

MPa

cr

MPa
A
l

MPa
A
u

MPa
m n q
Rheology
model
4.252 0.760 0.004 2.354 0.190 0.302 0.302 8.421 0.272 ----- 1.80
Simplified
model
7.500 0.760 0.004 ----- 0.680 ----- ----- 8.070 ----- ----- -----
Design
model
7.500 0.900 ----- ----- 0.680 ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----


-4
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
-2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
S
h
e
a
r

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Shear strain
Parameter identification at room temp.[LRB1]
Experiment
Rheology model
Simplified model
Bilinear model















Figure 4: Numerical simulation of sinusoidal excitation at room (+23
o
C) temperature for LRBs.
3. STRUCTURAL DAMPING
The damping constant matrix C for the bridge system is evaluated using the stiffness proportional damping
model. The damping constant matrix is calculated by summing all the elements damping constants. The
damping constant matrix is determined by using the elemental damping constant
j
h and the first natural
circular frequency of the system
1
e . The damping constant matrix C can be written as:


(2)


where
j
h and
j
k are, respectively, the damping constant and stiffness matrix of the
th
j

element and N is
the number of elements of the bridge system. The elemental damping constants for the steel girder are taken
as 0.02, for the concrete part and the foundation soil taken as 0.05 and 0.2, respectively (JRA, 2002).


4. SEISMIC RESPONSES OF BRIDGE
Before conducting nonlinear time history analysis of the bridge system, an eigenvalue analysis was carried
out to compute the vibration properties (natural frequencies and mode shapes of the bridge). Using the first
natural frequency properties of the system, the damping matrix in Equation (2) is obtained.
A proposed solution algorithm for the rheology model has been successfully implemented in commercially
available software (Kozo Keikaku Eng. Inc., 2006). Due to the symmetry of the bridge structure shown in
Figure 1(a) and due to space limitations, only one piers results P1 (=P4) using lead rubber isolation
bearings (LRB1) are graphically presented and discussed herein. Figure 5 presents typical shear stress-strain
responses of the bearings installed at the top of a pier of the bridge subjected to Level 2 earthquake (severe)
j
N
j
j
k
h

=
=
1 1
2
e
C


-2
-1
0
1
2
-2 -1 0 1 2
S
h
e
a
r

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Shear strain
Seismic response [LRB1-222]
Rheology model
Simplified model
Bilinear model
ground motions (JRA, 2002). Figures 6 present the plot of moment-rotation responses for the plastic hinge
modeled by the Takeda tri-linear model (Takeda et al. 1970). From the comparison it visible that the
proposed simplified model shows good agreement with the rheology model for Level 2 severe earthquake
ground motions. However, as seen from Figure 5 and 6 that the design model underestimate the isolations
bearings (LRB1) responses as compared with rheology and the proposed simplified model whereas, it
overestimates the plastic hinge responses.


5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Effect of modeling of bearings on the seismic responses of the isolated bridge is evaluated by conducting
nonlinear dynamic analyses. Three different analytical models of the isolation bearings (LRB1) are used in
the study for conducting a comparative assessment of the seismic responses of the isolated bridge system.
These three models are design model specified in JRA (2002) the rheology model (Bhuiyan et al. (2009a
and 2009b) and the proposed simplified model. As the design model, the bilinear model is employed for
modeling LRB.

It should be noted that a set of parameters of the models are estimated using experimental data conducted
by the authors. In this paper, the bridge responses are discussed in terms of the moment-rotation relations of
the plastic hinges and the shear stress-strain relations of the bearings, since these responses are very crucial
for seismic design of bridge systems. The effect of modeling the bearings is significantly observed in the
responses indicating that a careful selection of the models of isolation bearings is very important for seismic
design of an isolated bridge system.














Figure 5: Shear stress-strain responses of the isolation bearings at the top of the P1 (=P4) piers as obtained
for Level 2 Type II earthquake ground motion at room temperature (+23
o
C) for LRB.


-15000
-7500
0
7500
15000
-0.06 -0.03 0 0.03 0.06
M
o
m
e
n
t

(
K
N
-
m
)
Rotation (rad)
Seismic response [LRB1-222]
Rheology model
Simplified model
Bilinear model













Figure 6: Moment-rotation responses of plastic hinge of the pier P1 (=P4) as obtained using isolation
bearings for Level 2 Type II earthquake ground motion at room temperature (+23
o
C) for LRB
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The experimental works were conducted by utilizing the laboratory facilities and bearings-specimens provided by
Japan Rubber Bearing Association. The authors indeed gratefully acknowledge the kind cooperation extended by
them. The authors also offer special thanks to Hokubo Consultant Ltd. and Seismic Engineering Inc. for providing
necessary cooperation throughout this work. Furthermore, the authors sincerely acknowledge the funding provided by
the Japan-ADB in the form of scholarships to carry out this research work.


REFERENCES

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nd
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th
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nd
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York.


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