Ricerc@Sapienza

Timber light-frame shear walls are a widespread structural system employed within platform framing buildings. Therefore, the analysis of the seismic performance of these structures deserves proper attention. In this regard, the limited inertia forces ensured by the high strength-to-density ratio of the timber and the energy dissipation ensured by sheathing-to-framing connections provide good earthquake resistance. The latter aspect for timber light-frame shear walls subjected to in-plane seismic loads is investigated in the present work.

The need for enhancing the sustainability of civil constructions has originated an increasing interest in the use of engineered bamboo-based products within the building sector. Nonetheless, while the static response of bamboo-made structures has been largely investigated, experimental and numerical researches concerning the response under dynamic loads are limited. Therefore, the present work deals with the assessment of the seismic behavior of modern bamboo lightweight shear walls, with focus on the energy dissipation ensured by sheathing-to-framing connections.

The present study is concerned with the seismic analysis and design of light-frame timber shear walls, with focus on the energy dissipation ensured by sheathing-to-framing connections under in-plane lateral loads. In this perspective, a suitable parametric finite element model for light-frame timber shear walls is first developed using the software OpenSees. By means of such model, the equivalent viscous damping of the wall is assessed numerically, together with the damping factor adopted within the capacity spectrum method.

The seismic analysis of bridges needs to account for the effects of soil-structure interaction with methods that strike a reasonable balance between completeness and reliability of the numerical soil-structure interaction models. In view of this, focusing on the marked influence that the behaviour of the abutments can have on the seismic performance of the whole bridge, this study presents an identification procedure of the dynamic response bridge abutments.

This paper presents a coupled numerical modelling of the soil-structure interaction for a multi-span girder bridge, inspired by a case study in Italy, to analyse the importance of the local dynamic response of the abutments in the seismic performance of the bridge. The full soil-bridge model was implemented in the analysis framework OpenSees, describing the mechanical behaviour of the foundation soils by means of an advanced constitutive model calibrated against experimental data.