Seismic behaviour of steel braced frames with ductile inerd connections

The paper presents some experimental results of the European Research program INERD, on the seimic behaviour of steel braced frames with dissipative connections, involving among the others Instituto Superior Tecnico (P), Politecnico di Milano (I), and National Technique University of Atherns (GR). Four different types of new dissipative connections were studied, involving the analysis of constructional parameters such as type of dissipative connection, slenderness of the bracing element, stiffness of the connection or thickness of the plates. The study of the connections was developed in three stages: experimental study of the connections themselves; experimental study of frames with such connections; numerical simulations of the cyclic behaviour of connections and of connected frames. Based on experimental studies and numerical simulation models, practical design rules were derived to allow for the proper dimensioning of structures with the developed dissipative connections.