Advanced Seismic Design for Storage Pallet Rack Steel Frames

In the paper, a study on the design of braced and unbraced steel storage pallet racks in seismic zone is summarized. On the basis of a geometric layout of interest for routine design, rack performance has been evaluated via two alternative approaches: the well-established modal response spectrum analysis (MRSA) and an advanced strategy combining non-linear time-history analyses with the measurement of the damage in joints. Reference is made to two recent Italian earthquakes scaled by different values of the peak ground acceleration. Furthermore, cyclic joint behavior has been reproduced by means of a suitable model accounting for joint strength/stiffness degradation, whose excursions in plastic range has been considered to monitor the damage.