Mechanical properties of Indonesian rubber for low-cost base isolation

From the earthquake histories in Indonesia, it was shown that the most damaged buildings was residential houses. The main issues of the poor seismic performance of the residential houses was due to poor detailing and low quality of construction materials. To be able to reduce seismic hazard potential for residential houses, there was a need to implement a low cost earthquake friendly system namely the low cost base isolation.Low cost base isolation is specifically designed for the residential house usage, using local Indonesian rubber and fiber reinforcement. In this paper three types of Indonesian rubber will be tested, namely RB 35, RB 70 and RB 90. The results shows that supposedly harder RB 70 Modulus was only higher at low strain level, but having lower Modulus at high strain level. It was also shown the hardest RB 90 having pretty low elongation before it breaks, making it risky touse for base isolator. The overall results shows that the RB 35 having highest elongation before it breaks and moderate Modulus is the most suitable for the low cost base isolation usage.