Dynamic Analysis of a Smart Base-Isolation System Based on MR Elastomers

This paper presents a numerical investigation of a smart base isolation system employing magneto-rheological (MR) elastomers or an MR elastomer-based base isolation system. MR elastomers are a new class of smart materials whose elastic modulus or stiffness can be adjusted depending on the magnitude of the applied magnetic field. Hence, they can be used as controllable stiffness elements in engineering systems. The primary goal of this study is to investigate the dynamic performance of the smart base-isolation in mitigating excessive vibrations of a building structure under earthquake loadings. To this end, a five-story shear building model coupled with a smart base-isolation is developed. Using this model, a series of numerical simulations is performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the MR elastomer-based base isolation system under several historic seismic excitations. The results show that the proposed base isolation system outperform the conventional passive-type base isolation system in reducing the responses of the building structure for all seismic excitations considered in this study.