Preliminary study of a seismic-resilient steel pilot building equipped with low-damage connections

Abstract

According to current seismic design codes, structures are designed to exhibit an elastic behaviour or slight damage in case of frequent (low intensity) seismic events. Conversely, in the case of rare (high intensity) seismic events, more widespread damage is allowed. In fact, according to the latter case, structures are typically designed to concentrate the seismic damage into dissipative fuses, whose ductility and energy dissipation capacity is properly designed through the adoption of specific detailing rules. This approach allows the achievement of the safety requirements, with considerable damage to the structural components and large residual drifts, which can significantly compromise the building's reparability. To overcome these drawbacks, recent efforts are aimed at developing innovative seismic resilient structures to reduce structural damage and repair time. Among others, steel Moment Resisting Frames equipped with friction devices in beam-to-column joints have emerged as a promising and effective solution that simultaneously ensures the seismic input energy dissipation capacity and the damage-free behaviour of the system. In this direction, relevant research studies have been carried out within the RFCS-FREEDAM research project, demonstrating the high potential of friction joints in drastically reducing the seismic damage of steel structures. Within this context, the free-from-damage technology developed within the FREEDAM research project is going to be implemented in a demonstration building to be erected at the University Campus of Salerno. The present paper illustrates the preliminary design and results of the numerical simulations in OPENSEES. Non-linear static analyses and Incremental Dynamic Analyses are performed to obtain the engineering demand parameters of interest while accounting for the record-to-record variability.