Seismic Protection Devices: Design and Performance of a New Dynamic Test Facility
Samuele Infanti1, Silvio De Toni1, Aikaterina E. Pigouni1
1 Test Laboratory Director
FIP Industriale, Selvazzano Dentro (PD), Italy
silvio.detoni@fip-group.it
evina.pigouni@fip-group.it
Abstract. The increasing need of application for seismic isolation and energy dissipation devices, for both new and existing civil structures, brought to the development of new testing protocols. The experimental activities contribute to this development, as a basis of improvement of the anti-seismic devices as well as updating the regulations of testing protocols. The most recent subject specific codes, such as the European Code EN15129:2009, require for full-scale dynamic testing both for prototyping and factory production control purposes in order to determine principal design parameters, namely deformation characteristics and damping values. For this reason, newly designed and dedicated testing facilities are nowadays available performing under a wide range of loads, velocities and displacements. This paper aims at presenting an overview of the dynamic testing requirements of the general testing worldwide specifications (EN15129:2009, AASHTO 2014, UBC 1997, ASCE/SEI 7-05, NCh2745:2013, ISO22762-2010) and the implementation of such requirements into a new generation Dynamic Testing Facility recently built by FIP Industriale in Italy. This new facility was designed and constructed (finished in 2015) capable to apply high loads at high velocities and frequencies on full-scale anti-seismic devices. It consists mainly of two test rigs; the Biaxial Dynamic System for the testing of seismic isolation devices, such as elastomeric isolators and curved surface sliders and the Axial Dynamic System for testing axial devices (viscous dampers and shock transmission units). The Biaxial Dynamic System requires vertical load capacities up to 30000kN at horizontal displacements of ±500mm and velocities up to 1570mm/s. The axial dynamic system can provide a total stroke of ±300mm, 11500kN maximum axial capacity and 850mm/s maximum velocity, able to reach a maximum test rig configuration more than 15m. Both these systems are connected to a special designed hydraulic circuit, with huge hydraulic power supply, covering testing opportunities to a wide spectrum of devices and test possibilities.
Keywords: Seismic isolation, dynamic test facility, elastomeric isolators, curved surface sliders, viscous dampers.
