Healthcare facilities symbolize the principal lifeline activity whose operability should be assured after a natural calamity. However, hospital post-disaster functionality is closely related to both structural and nonstructural response, highlighting how facilities can lose their operability just for medium intensity earthquakes. Accordingly, this work aims to focus on a novel pseudoelastic isolation prototype when adopted to damp floor systems, therefore potentially relevant to isolate and retrofit, respectively, new and existing hospitals. Initially, based on tests accomplished at the Italian National Research Council (CNR), dedicated numerical simulations are performed to interpret the tensile response of the proposed shape-memory alloy (SMA) passive damper. In this regard, static and dynamic, as well as hint of coupled thermo-mechanic analyses are performed to clarify and predict the physical phenomena underpinning the complex SMA-based damper response. Finally, focusing on the concept of hospital resilience, the paper demonstrates and updates reasons behind floor isolation systems, underlining structural and non-structural enhanced capabilities when applied to multistory moment resisting frame (MRF) healthcare facilities.
A pseudoelastic floor isolation system for hospital seismic retrofitting
Casagrande L.;Auricchio F.
2019-01-01
Abstract
Healthcare facilities symbolize the principal lifeline activity whose operability should be assured after a natural calamity. However, hospital post-disaster functionality is closely related to both structural and nonstructural response, highlighting how facilities can lose their operability just for medium intensity earthquakes. Accordingly, this work aims to focus on a novel pseudoelastic isolation prototype when adopted to damp floor systems, therefore potentially relevant to isolate and retrofit, respectively, new and existing hospitals. Initially, based on tests accomplished at the Italian National Research Council (CNR), dedicated numerical simulations are performed to interpret the tensile response of the proposed shape-memory alloy (SMA) passive damper. In this regard, static and dynamic, as well as hint of coupled thermo-mechanic analyses are performed to clarify and predict the physical phenomena underpinning the complex SMA-based damper response. Finally, focusing on the concept of hospital resilience, the paper demonstrates and updates reasons behind floor isolation systems, underlining structural and non-structural enhanced capabilities when applied to multistory moment resisting frame (MRF) healthcare facilities.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
