The MUST-STAND project studies the hot topic of Performance-Based Multi-Hazard Design (PB-MH-D) of structures, with specific focus on the frame structural tipology. First: an advanced ad comprehensive procedure for the PB-MH-D of steel frames will be developed by taking into account three kind of hazard: Earthquake, Wind and Blast. These are necessary to develop exhaustive applications of the procedure for considering two specific issues related to the PB-MH-D: i) the consideration of Hazard-Chain scenarios (blast follwing earthquakes) and; ii) the consideration of concurrent independent hazards determining conflicting design strategies (wind- versus earthquake-driven design). Second: a number of case studies will be developed (frames of different heights) and; third: an optimal risk-targeted design procedure will be devised for muti-hazard design context. The results of the MUST-STAND project wiill cover the literature gap reharding the two i) and ii) above-mentioned issues. Due to the complexity and the broadness of the topic, the research unit will be composed by six members in total, such a research team is strategically assembled to cover the main needed expertises: Wind- Earthquake- and Blast- engineering, structural robustness assessment, reliability analysis, numerical modeling.
1. Innovatività della ricerca
The MUST-STAND research innovation concerns the definition of a general framework for the coherent design of structures in MH context. This is a masterpiece that is still missed in the literature and prevents the reaching of true optimal design solution in the real environment. What we usually call "optimal design" should be better defined as a "sub-optimal" solution (which is optimal for a single hazard but is not optimal, globally, for the complex MH environment in which our structure is built). The adoption of single-hazard optimal design strategies also limits our decisional space as designers by not considering the solutions that comes from the "optimal compromise" between performances reached under actions of different nature.
The MUST-STAND project will provide a valuable contribution in covering this literature gap.
2. Potenzialità di realizzare un avanzamento delle conoscenze rispetto allo stato dell'arte
Specific advancements of knowledge with respect to the state of the art will be provided about two specific research sub-topics in the MH panorama:
- Hazard Chain interaction
- Concurrent independent hazards determining conflicting design strategies
Potential long-run effects of the findings of the MUST-STAND project will regard the state of practice in structural design: the change of viewpoint from single- to multi-hazard design will impact on all the current conventionally-reached risk levels for single hazard. In this sense, it is expected that Standards will be re-written in a multi-hazard view, with appropriate re-calibration of current partial safety factor, design occurrences for hazard intensity, and load cases to be considered in the design.