Experimental Study of High Axial Damping Rubber (HADR) in New Viscoelastic Dampers

Abstract

In the last few years, dampers with viscoelastic material as passive energy dissipation devices have been considered, with their dual behavior, in the modern methods of seismic performance-based design. In these new dampers, energy dissipation of viscoelastic material, unlike ordinary viscoelastic dampers obtained by shear strain, is provided by amplified axial strain. Hence, the production of a High Axial Damping Rubber (HADR) is required in these dampers. This article presents the results of experimental work carried out to characterize the mechanical response of a HADR to be used in the design and construction of new viscoelastic dampers for controlling strong vibrations in civil engineering structures. The experimental results showed that the HADR behavior is better than that of styrene butadiene rubber, leading to improved mechanical properties in the range of standard rubber. The hardness, tensile strength, elongation at break, compressive strength, and rate of resilience of this rubber are obtained as, respectively, 60 durometer (shore A), 16.56 MPa, 519 %, 1,730 kPa, and 50 %. Finally, the uniaxial tension and compression data of HADR for its modeling in the finite element program are discussed.