Keywords: pure aluminium, shear panels, dissipative devices, passive seismic control, cyclic response, FEM model.

Passive protection of new and existing buildings by means of appropriate devices is nowadays an important seismic design strategy for both steel and reinforced concrete structures. In this context, the use of pure aluminium shear panels has been recently proposed by the authors since these devices are capable to provide a significant energy dissipation contribution for a wide range of applied deformation. A wide experimental programme is ongoing at the University of Naples Federico II in cooperation with the University of Chieti-Pescara G. d'Annunzio in order to investigate the performance of the innovative proposed solution, considering different panel topologies and several rib configurations corresponding to different local slenderness ratios of the base plate. All specimens tested highlighted a good cyclic behaviour with large ductility before collapse, even though their performance has been somehow influenced by the welds and limited by the premature failure of the surrounding bolted connection, which represented the main weak point of the  [1,2].

In order to better identify the main features of the adopted system, a detailed finite element numerical model of a bracing type pure aluminium shear panel characterized by a slenderness factor of b/t=100 a has been implemented by means of the ABAQUS non linear analysis software. The reliability of such a model has been proved by the above experimental results, which have been used to check the stress state, the deformed shape and the main resistant mechanisms of the analysed shear panel topology. A detailed comparison in terms of dissipated energy per cycle, secant global stiffness hardening ratio and equivalent viscous damping ratio has been also carried out, showing that the proposed model is able to correctly reproduce the complex cyclic response of the system for a very large deformation range. As a further development, the numerical model will be used to carry out a wider parametrical analysis and to set up more appropriate design criteria for pure aluminium shear panels to be employed as dissipative devices in new and existing framed structures.

1

G. De Matteis, S. Panico, F.M. Mazzolani, "Experimental study on pure aluminium shear panels with different stiffener types", Proceedings of the V International Conference STESSA '06 (Behaviour of Steel Structures in Seismic Areas), Balkema, 219-224, 14-17 August , Yokohama, Japan, 2006.

2

G. De Matteis, G. Brando, S. Panico, F.M. Mazzolani, "Experimental study on stiffened bracing type pure aluminium shear panels (BTPASPs)", Proceeding of the third International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation (SEMC '07). Cape Town, South Africa, 10-12 September, 2007.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £120 +P&P)