Abstract:The power failure during earthquake is usually caused by damages of high voltage equipment by the earthquake. Therefore, the vibration of electric structures should be reduced, to protect the electric system. In this paper, ANSYS software is applied to establish a finite element model of GW7-252 isolation switch, the time history for the resonance amplitude wave is analyzed according to the specifications of the device. The dynamical response of the original structure is discussed. A finite element damping model of the device with the shock absorbers developed by China Electric Power Research Institute is built, the simulated results are compared with those of the original structure. When the peak acceleration is changed from 0.15g to 0.465g, a seismic efficiency is varied from 37% to 75%. As the peak acceleration increases, the shock absorbers go into the process of plasticity energy consumption. When the peak acceleration is 0.465g, the safety factor of the isolating switch supporting porcelain is 0.41, but it becomes 1.72 with the shock absorbers. The results show that the shock absorbers are effective to reduce the structure vibration in earthquake. The metal shock absorbers designed by the passive energy dissipation method are easy to make and convenient to install, with good results. They can be widely used in high voltage electric equipment.