Abstract: A nonlinear elastic damping model was established, in which the restoring force was resolved to two parts : the nonlinear elastic restoring force and the nonlinear damping force. The parameters of the model were ide ntified from the experimental data. The test data were compared with theoretical ones. The results show that the model can capture the nonlinear hysteresis quite accurately, and therefore provides a favorable tool for further research on dynamic response of isolation systems.