Connections and dissipative systems with early warning

Abstract

The global response of historic buildings is determined by the behaviour of the single structural elements as well as by their mutual connections. Consequently, in the last decades a number of technical solutions for the improvement of structural connections have been developed in response to the increasing demand in the field of the seismic protection of heritage assets. At the same time, the experimental assessment of structural strengthening techniques is a well established practice both in the scientific community and among commercial producers. It is therefore surprising how testing of connections is rarely performed and very few codes of practice deal with it. Additionally, the few existing experimental procedures for testing connections are neither standardised nor easily accessible to end users. Within the framework of the EU-funded NIKER project, Work Package 6 aims to address such technical gap through the development of procedures specific to the strengthening of structural connections of historic buildings.