Improvement of the polyurethane spring isolation device for HV post insulators and its evaluation by fragility curves

A novel seismic base isolation system has been developed for high-voltage (HV) porcelain post insulators. The seismic isolation device consists of two steel plates, four polyurethane springs, and a steel rod, which are low-cost components compared to the post insulators. Two alternative designs of the device are experimentally and numerically assessed in this article. A simple and robust numerical model consisting of linear line elements and nonlinear springs was generated, and subsequently validated using the experimental results. Incremental dynamic analyses (IDAs) were then performed to obtain fragility curves. Ten historical earthquake profiles, scaled to intensities between 0.1 and 2.0 g, were then applied to the numerical models. The fragility curves, generated according to the latest version of IEEE-693, demonstrate that the seismic isolation devices are highly effective in diminishing the base moment of the porcelain insulator. It should be noted that relatively large displacements at the top of the pole must be accounted for by ensuring adequate slackness in the flexible conductors.