Experimental research on the seismic behaviour of precast r/c structures: the role of ASSOBETON and ELSA

The traditional single-storey structures for industrial buildings, made of an assemblage of precast components, have a large diffusion all over Europe, due to their low costs associated to a very good ser-viceability. In Italy they cover almost all the market of industrial buildings and an important percentage of commercial structures. In spite of the large use of this type of buildings, some uncertainties are still connected with their seismic behaviour. Since some years ASSOBETON, in close collaboration with Politecnico of Mi-lan and the ELSA Laboratory, participate actively to national and European research programmes devoted to the investigation of the seismic behaviour of precast structures. The first research project is dated 1994. As a part of the project twenty columns, characterised by different re-inforcement configurations and axial load, have been subjected to cyclic loads of increasing amplitude. The results of the experimental campaign demonstrated that precast columns are able to dissipate a large amount of energy up to important ductilities with stable loops. After the qualification of the seismic behaviour of sin-gle elements, a research programme aimed at demonstrating the equivalence between the behaviour factor of precast and cast in situ single-storey industrial buildings was carried out in collaboration with other associa-tions interested in the field. The results of the tests demonstrated the excellent capacity of precast buildings to behave during earthquakes without suffering important damage. The study of the seismic behaviour of single-storey precast buildings was extended to the investigation of the effects of the presence of cladding panels within the PRECAST STRUCTURES EC8 project. The results of the study provided important data for the evaluation of the stiffening effect of panels together with information about the diaphragmatic behaviour of precast roofs. The results obtained within the previously mentioned research project will be extended to multi-storey structures as a part of the SAFECAST project recently financed by the European Commission. This paper is intended to provide an overview of the main results of these research projects.JRC.DG.G.5-European laboratory for structural assessmen