Abstract
In general, the laminated rubber bearing (LRB), a composite structure laminated with the elastic rubber and steel plates, has a complex hysteretic nonlinear characteristics in relationships between the restoring force and shear deflection. The representative nonlinear characteristics of LRB include the change of hysteresis loop with cyclic shear deflections and the hardening effects at large shear deflection regions. Changes of the hysteresis loop of LRB with cyclic shear deflections affect the horizontal stiffness and the damping characteristics. The hardening behavior of LRB in large shear deflection region results in an increased horizontal stiffness and therefore, has a great impacton the seismic responses. In this paper, the seismic response analysis is carried out using the modified hysteretic bi-linear model of LRB, which takes into account the hysteresis loop change and the hardening behavior with cyclic shear deflection. The results on seismic responses are compared with those obtained using the widely used hysteretic hi-linear model. The new model is found to reveal the greater amount of peak acceleration response.