Preliminary Study on Beam-To-Column Joints Under Impact Loading

Abstract

Background:Recent catastrophic events have pointed out the need to ensure the integrity of structures under “exceptional” events. Since many years, the University of Liège is involved in different activities and projects related to the robustness assessment of structures. The robustness of a structure is the ability of the system to remain globally stable after events not directly accounted for in the design, like impact, fire or consequences of a human error, which should lead to a reasonable damage when compared to the original cause.Objective:The presented preliminary work reports the experimental campaign of different European projects (FREEDAM and ROBUSTIMPACT) carried out or currently ongoing, with the aim of understanding the behaviour of different joint typologies under impact loading protocol.Method:The experimental programmes have mainly regarded static and impact tests on steel joints by the means of a dropping mass using DIC (Digital Image Correlation) for the data acquisition.Conclusions:In the present paper, an overview on the design criteria adopted in the design of the experimental campaign, for the FREEDAM project, is given, and some earliest results are discussed.