Performance comparisons of friction pendulum bearings with different sliding surface configurations

In this thesis, time history analysis of a simple five-story structure with seismic isolation using single, double and triple friction pendulum bearings are carried out three dimensionally with the help of the ABAQUS finite element program. Furthermore, for the triple friction pendulum bearing, the analysis is also carried out by considering different friction coefficients and friction surface radii. As the results of the analysis, isolators with different friction surface numbers, different friction coefficients, and different friction surface radii are compared each other and with the results of a fixed supported structure. For this purpose, the structure reactions are measured in terms of maximum relative displacements, inter-story drift ratio, floor accelerations and base shear forces. Based on the results of the analysis, it is found that compared to the fixed support structure, the isolated structure reactions are significantly reduced. The comparison of isolators with different friction surface numbers shows that the triple friction pendulum bearing has a better performance for all structure reactions than other isolators. Moreover, when the results of triple friction pendulum bearings with different friction coefficients and different friction surfaces radii are examined, it is found that increasing the friction coefficient increases the reactions of the structure, while increasing the friction surface radii decreases the reactions of the structure.