Innovative design of diagrid structures for tall buildings in seismic hazard regions

What is it about?

Diagrid structures are widely used for tall buildings structures of the third millennium. Despite their architectural appeal, they exhibit poor behaviour under seismic actions. In order to overcome this limitation, in this paper, we propose an innovative structural solution where diagrid structures are exploited as a vibration control system, thus reducing a priori the seismic demand.

Featured Image

Photo by fruit pat on Unsplash

Photo by fruit pat on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We suggest to exploit the high elastic efficiency of the diagrid type and use a vibration control system, based on mass damping mechanism with large mass ratios, to reduce a priori the inelastic demands due to seismic actions. To do this, the diagrid is first transformed into a megastructure (MS) configuration by densifying the diagonal elements at the most stressed corner areas and transfer floors, suitably chosen. Then, the exterior mega-frame is detached from interior sub-structures, thus allowing for a relative motion between the two structural portions according to a “mega-sub-structure control system”, which activates the mass damping mechanism. Time-history analyses confirm the effectiveness of the proposed strategy and show a great improvement in the seismic response of these new structural solutions with respect to conventional diagrid systems.

Perspectives