Steel reinforced elastomeric isolators are currently the most used bearings for seismic
isolation purposes. The steel reinforcements are cut to the desired shape, sandblasted, cleaned with
acid, and coated with bonding compound during the manufacturing process. Then the elastomer
and steel layers are stacked in a mold and subjected to vulcanization so that they are glued together
and constitute a single body. Good adhesion between the layers is very important for the correct
functioning of the device. Adhesion conditions become critical when the isolators are subjected to
tensile stresses, which arise under direct tensile actions or large shear strains. To analyze the
influence of changes in the manufacturing process on the isolator adhesive behavior, the authors
performed tensile tests on square‐shaped small‐scale specimens rather than expensive shear tests
on full‐scale isolators. Hence, the adhesion behavior between elastomer and steel layers was
investigated through the tensile tests discussed herein. Among the influencing parameters that were
considered, it was found that an increase in vulcanization time does not improve the adhesion, but
it may actually worsen the capacity of the isolator in terms of strength. Moreover, it was found that
using elastomer without an oily component improves the adhesion between the layers and increases
the isolator’s dissipative capacity.
