Pseudo‐dynamic testing of a full‐scale two‐storey steel building with FREEDAM connections

• Published in: ce/papers Vol. 4; no. 2-4; pp. 1678 - 1687
• Main Authors: Di Benedetto, Sabatino, Francavilla, Antonella Bianca, Latour, Massimo, Piluso, Vincenzo, Rizzano, Gianvittorio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-09-2021
• Subjects: ductility; energy dissipation; FREEDAM connection; Pseudo‐dynamic test
• ISSN: 2509-7075; 2509-7075
• DOI: 10.1002/cepa.1473

The recent earthquakes have underlined the need for more advanced design philosophies able to avoid or reduce direct and indirect costs deriving from the occurrence of destructive seismic events. In fact, the traditional seismic design approach is based on performance levels implying the onset of damage which can be, in many cases, difficult to repair. In order to address social expectations and the need for resilient buildings, recently, novel low‐damage design philosophies have been proposed. These are based on the introduction, in particular points of the structure, of friction dampers able to dissipate large amounts of energy and to protect the structural members from damage. This is the case, for instance, of the Sliding Hinge Joints (SHJs), developed by the research group of the University of Auckland in 2005, or of the FREE from DAMage joints (FREEDAM), developed starting from 2009 at the University of Salerno.
Many experimental and analytical research efforts have been devoted to understanding the response of such connections. Nevertheless, currently there is still a lack of knowledge dealing with their seismic response in full‐scale buildings. In order to provide a contribution to fill this knowledge gap, an experimental program is currently ongoing at the STREngTH (STRuctural Engineering Testing Hall) Laboratory of the University of Salerno dealing with the pseudo‐dynamic testing of a full‐scale two‐storey steel building equipped with FREEDAM joints. The mock‐up has been subjected to a sequence of five accelerograms and the results have confirmed that FREEDAM connections provide large energy dissipation capacity and plastic rotation supply, thanks to their regular and plumb hysteretic loops. The experimental results have been complemented with numerical models developed with the software OpenSees.