New approach to model the mechanical behavior of multiple friction pendulum devices

The adoption of Friction Pendulum Devices (FPD), as a cheaper alternative to the elastomeric bearings, has caught the attention of both academic and technical communities, in the last decades. Even though different versions of such devices can be found on the market and their effectiveness has been extensively proven by means of numerous experimental campaigns carried out worldwide, many aspects concerning their mechanical behaviour still need to be clarified. These aspects concern, among others: 1) sequence of sliding on the several concave surfaces, 2) influence of temperature on the frictional properties of the coupling surfaces, 3) possibility of mechanical stick-slip phenomena, 4) possibility of impact-induced failure of some components, 5) geometric compatibility, and so on. Those aspects are less clear the larger the number of concave surfaces the device is composed of. This paper presents a newway of modelling the mechanical behaviour of the FPDs, by fulfilling 1) geometric compatibility, 2) kinematical compatibility, 3) dynamical equilibrium, and 4) thermo-mechanical coupling.