Design Guidelines for Connections of Precast Structures under Seismic Actions

This document has been drafted within Work-Package WP6, “Derivation of design rules” of the project SAFECAST (Performance of Innovative Mechanical Connections in Precast Building Structures under Seismic Conditions), Project FP7-SME-2007-2 Programme – Grant Agreement n. 218417, 2009). The provided guidelines have a theoretical derivation supported by the experimental results of the testing activities and the numerical simulations performed as a part of the project as well as by the general know-how on production practice and international literature on the subject. This document represents a set of practical guidelines for the design of the mechanical connections in precast elements under seismic actions. As a final outcome of the project SAFECAST, the document covers all the types of connections which were studied, experimentally as well as numerically, as a part of the project. However, by integrating the knowledge acquired during the project with the general state-of-the-art knowledge existing in the literature, the guidelines were extended to a potentially exhaustive set of connection typologies. Guidelines are also provided for defining the actions to be used in design. These guidelines can be used as a reference for designing the connections of precast structures under seismic actions whenever neither specific norms nor mandatory provisions exist. The guidelines do not cover the specific case of the connections of cladding elements, a problem which might deserve a specific study and might be the objective of a future research project.