Abstract In the recent past, numerical and experimental investigations on full-scale isolators have led to extensive improvements in seismic isolation techniques for bridge structures. Significant advances in dynamic testing techniques have been made at both software and hardware levels, and the response of an isolated bridge can be realistically simulated. In general, the response of an isolated bridge structure is strongly affected by the valley topography; therefore, high piers may not need isolation devices, since they are flexible enough to accommodate the design displacement in the elastic range. On the other hand, at those locations no hysteretic damping is provided and higher displacements can be achieved, compared to the maximum displacement allowance. In this work, a simplified procedure is proposed for the optimization of isolation systems for bridge structures. The seismic response of a designed case study structure is investigated through nonlinear time history analyses, and the effective contributions of both the nonlinear hysteretic behaviour of isolators and the elastic response of piers are considered. Regarding displacement and force responses in particular, the results show a very good agreement between mean and single-event peak responses, and the corresponding values returned by the proposed design procedure.

中文翻译：

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桥梁隔震系统简化设计程序的定义

摘要 近年来，对全尺寸隔震器的数值和实验研究导致桥梁结构隔震技术的广泛改进。动态测试技术在软件和硬件层面都取得了重大进展，并且可以真实地模拟隔离桥的响应。一般来说，孤立桥结构的响应受山谷地形的影响很大；因此，高墩可能不需要隔离装置，因为它们足够灵活以适应弹性范围内的设计位移。另一方面，与最大位移余量相比，在这些位置没有提供滞后阻尼，可以实现更高的位移。在这项工作中，提出了一种优化桥梁结构隔离系统的简化程序。通过非线性时程分析研究了设计案例研究结构的地震响应，并考虑了隔震器的非线性滞后行为和桥墩的弹性响应的有效贡献。特别是关于位移和力响应，结果显示平均峰值响应和单事件峰值响应之间非常一致，以及建议的设计程序返回的相应值。