Experimental investigation of novel carbon-fiber reinforced elastomeric isolators with polyurethane cores under vertical and lateral loading

To broaden the usage of elastomeric isolators, as well as to make them lighter and the manufacturing process inexpensive, carbon-fiber reinforced elastomeric isolators (C-FREIs) were introduced. These C-FREIs exhibit rollover deformation under lateral loadings due to their lack of flexural rigidity. This tendency of rollover under high magnitudes of lateral loadings can result in limited energy dissipation in unbonded applications while the lack of flexural rigidity of fiber reinforcement layers can cause premature delamination in bonded applications. To overcome these limitations, this study presents the experimental vertical and lateral performance of novel forms of carbon-fiber reinforced elastomeric isolators containing polyurethane cores (C-FRPEs) in three different arrangements to investigate their energy dissipation and delamination performance compared to the C-FREIs alone. Vertical compression tests and cyclic shear tests were performed on both bonded and unbonded isolators. The results showed that incorporating polyurethane cores in the C-FREIs not only improves their stability during rollover deformation but also enhances their energy dissipation capacity in the vertical direction. It was also observed that the polyurethane cores in C-FREIs were able to reduce the premature delamination in the bonded applications.