PSI - Issue 44

Michele Morici et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 44 (2023) 830–837 M. Morici et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2022) 000 – 000

836

7

Moreover, the ultimate capacity seems to be associated to a ductile mechanism (bending) rather than the sliding shear or the diagonal one, which are brittle failure mechanisms. Fig. 7a and Fig. 7b reports some further detail related to the cracks pattern of the back face of building 2 and to the uplift that the building suffered towards the end of the pushing tests. After retrofitting works, indeed, the dynamic behaviour of the building when subjected to lateral forces became more influenced by a rocking motion, rather than sliding due to shear. The uplift of the building happened nearby the pushing device, where the building was subjected to tension, while the façade opposite to the device is subjected to compression. The tests were stopped when the uplift was nearly equal to 100 mm and the phenomenon involved 2/3 of the length of the building base. It is useful to remember that the buildings are characterized by shallow foundations, on which it was practically impossible to determine and to verify the real effectiveness of the connection.

b

a

building 1

1200

1000

800

600

400

Base shear [kN]

200

0

0

20

40

60

80

100

Top displacement [mm]

Fig. 5. Building 1: (a) cracks pattern at the end of the test; (b) pushover curve.

b

a

building 2

1200

1000

800

600

400

Base shear [kN]

200

0

0

20

40

60

80

100

Top displacement [mm]

Fig. 6. Building 2: (a) cracks pattern on the front face at the end of the test; (b) pushover curve.

a

b

Fig. 7. Building 2: (a) cracks pattern on the back face at the end of the test; (b) uplift of the back left corner.