The Challenges of Performance Based Design in Structural Testing

There is a widespread consensus about the need of developing design methods based on performance objectives rather than on strict practical rules. The European scientific community can already rely on a suite of norms, the Eurocodes, which explicitly state the fundamental requirements in terms of performance. However, even though built around performance based fundamental requirements, the Eurocodes are still far from allowing for a fully performance based design. The scientific community is currently tackling the definition, harmonization and cross-correlation of standard and new performance parameters, so that requirements could eventually be specified in terms of those parameters, and new design methods could be developed. Meanwhile, prescriptive design rules are maintained and practice and experience, rather than explicitly quantified performance criteria, control the design process. The challenges of Performance Based Design in structural testing are shown with reference to recently performed large-scale pseudodynamic tests at the European Laboratory for Structural Assessment (ELSA). The importance of the selection of the most suitable experimental technique is illustrated. It is shown that the prescriptions of current hazard estimation techniques for the thresholds of the damage states cannot be automatically transferred to RC frame structures designed according to the Eurocodes. To this end, further experimental and numerical studies are needed for estimation of the code specific damage states thresholds.

NEGRO Paolo;  DIMOVA Silvia; 

2006-10-17

Nagoya University

JRC32338

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC32338,