Linearization Techniques for Seismic Analysis of Piping System on Friction Support

Abstract

Generally, industrial piping systems are supported on hangers, snubbers, friction supports, etc. Friction supports are used for free thermal expansion of the piping systems. They also have the property to absorb energy from earthquake excitation. In this paper, equivalent linearization techniques such as the Caughey method for bilinear system and the energy method are used to calculate equivalent damping of typical industrial piping system on friction support. These methods are compared in terms of the equivalent damping. An iterative response spectrum method is tried for evaluating response of the piping system using equivalent damping obtained by linearization techniques. Maximum response displacement obtained at friction support is compared with the experimental values. At the end it is concluded that the Caughey method and the energy method evaluate similar damping for the piping on friction support and also concluded that the iterative response spectrum method is easy and reasonable for use in design.