Dr Bill Robinson on the steps of Parliament House, New Zealand, which was retrofitted with his lead-rubber dampers
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Welcome to Robinson Seismic Limited
Robinson Seismic Ltd specialises in developing, manufacturing and testing
seismic protection and damping equipment.
The company was founded by Dr Bill Robinson who began his earthquake
engineering career at New Zealand’s Department of Scientific and
Industrial Research. Since the 1970’s Dr Robinson has invented and
developed a number of seismic protection devices, including the Lead
Rubber Bearing now used throughout the world.
The lead rubber bearing is world famous for being the seismic isolation
system which successfully protected the University of Southern California
Teaching Hospital from damage during the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake while
ten nearby hospitals were so badly damaged that they had to be
evacuated.
This 7 storey hospital underwent ground accelerations of 0.49g, while the
rooftop acceleration was only 0.21g – a reduction by a factor of 1.8.
The Olive View Hospital, nearer to the epicenter of the earthquake
underwent a top floor acceleration of 2.31g compared with is base
acceleration of 0.82g – a magnification by a factor of 2.8. A
comparison between the hospital seismically isolated with lead rubber
bearings and the unisolated building shows an advantage by a factor of 1.8
x 2.8 ~ 5 in favour of the isolated hospital.
Further support for the lead rubber bearing isolation system occurred in
the Grant Hanshin earthquake which struck Kobe Japan in January 1995.
A building isolated with the lead rubber bearing system in the
affected zone survived with no damage or disruption to services. For
this building, the computer centre of the Ministry of Post and
Telecommunications, results indicated a maximum ground acceleration of
0.40g while the sixth floor acceleration had a maximum of 0.13g - an
attenuation by a factor of 3.
These two examples of the behaviour of unisolated and isolated buildings
in real earthquakes clearly illustrate the advantages of the Lead Rubber
Bearing isolation system.
See below for ordering information on the new book by Trevor Kelly, Bill
Robinson and Ivan Skinner.
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