Precast Concrete Structures Assessment with the Direct Displacement Based Design

The seismic assessment of precast concrete structures with an approach according to the Direct Displacement Based Design (DDBD) procedure is investigated, considering typical Italian precast concrete buildings (e.g. one story industrial buildings, warehouses and commercial malls) whose structural layout usually consists of cantilever columns connected at the top by prestressed precast beams supporting prestressed precast concrete roof elements. The study concerns how to correctly account for typical structural details of precast concrete structures like column to foundation and column to beam connections. Regarding the column to foundation connections, a procedure is proposed to take into account the different energy dissipation capacity and the yield curvature associated to different types of connections which will be used to estimate the equivalent viscous damping and the displacement ductility, respectively. Regarding the column to beam connection, it is proposed how to modify the e...