Recent advances in the technologies of connection for panel structures: development of an hysteretic damper for industrial buildings

Background: The most recent seismic events occurred in Italy have highlighted some of the drawbacks of precast concrete industrial buildings and especially those related to the connecting systems traditionally employed to fasten the cladding panels to the internal framing. In fact, in many cases, the out-of-plane collapse of the external walls has been observed due to the problems related to the poor behaviour exhibited under cyclic loads by the connectors used to join the panels to the perimeter beams. Objective: In light of these outcomes, in this work, the possibility to improve the traditional structural details of industrial buildings by proposing the adoption of a dual system composed by the internal pendular columns and the external walls is examined. Method: It is provided to substitute the joints classically adopted at the top of the walls with a connection able to work as a slider with vertical axis and to insert at the bottom of the walls two or more hysteretic dampers recently patented at the Italian Patent Office after revision of the European Patent Office (EPO). With this approach, with respect to the classical design philosophy, due to the participation of the cladding panels, the structure is stiffened, obtaining an improved due to the additional source of energy dissipation represented by the dampers located at the base of the walls. Results and Conclusion: The effectiveness of the suggested approach is verified by evaluating the results of pushover analysis carried out on a building designed following the proposed approach.