Abstract
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) operates a significant portion of the electrical high-voltage transmission grid in the Pacific Northwest. As part of a long-term seismic mitigation program, BPA sponsors research into ways to minimize the vulnerability of existing electrical substation equipment. Passive energy dissipation devices add supplemental damping to improve the dynamic response of structures to earthquakes. One such mechanism, a friction spring damping device, utilizes a primary and secondary set of self-centering ring springs installed around a single end-mount load shaft to reduce peak accelerations. The adaptation of this technology to seismically retrofit existing high-voltage substation equipment single-pedestal support stand is the subject of this paper. Dynamic properties were determined from force-displacement and vibration tests. Full-scale earthquake transient tests conducted on a support stand equipped with friction spring devices resulted in substantial reductions of the in-plane peak accelerations in comparison to tests performed without the friction spring devices.
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