To overcome the shortages of current laminated rubber bearings (RB), a new kind of isolator called Prestressed Rubber Bearing (PRB) is presented in this paper, which is invented by appropriately amplifying the thickness of rubber layers in conventional RB and employing prestress tendons. Based on the experimental study, a modified formula for vertical stiffness of PRB is established. Then the nonlinear analytical model for PRB’s horizontal stiffness is developed and the corresponding formulas are derived. Through the response history analysis of structures, the isolation capacities of PRBs are investigated. The results show that the horizontal stiffness of PRB is variable with the displacment. PRB not only has effective isolation capacity as conventional RBs but also has the favorable capacity of horizontal displacement limitation and vertical up resistance
