Abstract
The end faces of laminated rubber bearings are subjected to large rotation in cases where the beams to which the bearings are attached are low in stiffness or are omitted. Because there have been few studies on the effect of end rotations on the mechanical properties of bearings, many points remain unclear. This paper presents a newly derived mechanical model for evaluating large-deformation behaviors and for application to frame analyses. The model is created such that a rubber bearing is divided into several units, each of which is composed of two rotational springs, a shear spring, and a rigid rod. The rotations of the end faces are considered with this model. It is easy to apply the model to generally-used frame analyses, because its analytical methodology is the same as that of frame analyses. To check the basic behaviors of this model, material linearity is assumed when deriving fundamental equations of the model. Numerical studies show that this model corresponds to the Haringx theory, which is the classical linear theory of laminated rubber bearings.
