Effects of friction variability on a rolling-damper-spring isolation system

A large number of isolation systems are designed without considering the non-uniform friction distribution in space. In order to analyze the effects of non-uniform friction distribution on the structural response of isolation system, this paper presented a simplified rolling-damper-spring isolation system and analyzed the structural responses under earthquakes. The numerical results indicate that the calculation errors related to the peak values of structural acceleration, relative displacement and residual displacement are sequentially growing because of the ignorance of non-uniform friction distribution. However, the influence rule may be weakened by the spring and damper actions, and the unreasonable spring constant may lead to the sympathetic vibration of isolation system. In the case when the friction variability is large and the damper action is little, the nonuniform friction distribution should be taken into consideration during the calculation process of the peak values of structural acceleration and relative displacement. The non-uniform friction distribution should be taken into full consideration regardless of friction variability degree in calculating the residual displacement of isolation system.