The European logistics industry, including warehousing, transhipment, and transport, is of vital importance to the European economy. The total European market for racking and storage equipment was yearly ca. € 4 billion in 2014 and has significantly increased in the last years. Steel storage pallet racks are a crucial component of this industry, which due to their structural characteristics (i.e., flexible connections and diaphragms, thin wall elements, and large stiffness difference between orthogonal directions), exhibit a high seismic vulnerability. To increase the energy dissipation capacity along the down-aisle direction, it is proposed a rotary hysteretic damper placed at the beam-to-upright connection, allowing adding supplemental damping without reducing the workable area of the steel storage pallet racks. The seismic assessment of the proposed device was carried out by subjecting different configurations of steel storage pallet racks to nonlinear time-history analyses. The seismic responses were measured in terms of fragility curves, peak drift and residual drift profiles and energy dissipation of beam-to-upright connections.
SEISMIC ASSESSMENT OF AN INNOVATIVE ENERGY DISSIPATION DEVICE FOR STEEL STORAGE PALLET RACKS
Gabbianelli, Giammaria;Chalarca, Bryan
2025-01-01
Abstract
The European logistics industry, including warehousing, transhipment, and transport, is of vital importance to the European economy. The total European market for racking and storage equipment was yearly ca. € 4 billion in 2014 and has significantly increased in the last years. Steel storage pallet racks are a crucial component of this industry, which due to their structural characteristics (i.e., flexible connections and diaphragms, thin wall elements, and large stiffness difference between orthogonal directions), exhibit a high seismic vulnerability. To increase the energy dissipation capacity along the down-aisle direction, it is proposed a rotary hysteretic damper placed at the beam-to-upright connection, allowing adding supplemental damping without reducing the workable area of the steel storage pallet racks. The seismic assessment of the proposed device was carried out by subjecting different configurations of steel storage pallet racks to nonlinear time-history analyses. The seismic responses were measured in terms of fragility curves, peak drift and residual drift profiles and energy dissipation of beam-to-upright connections.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
