[en] Recent catastrophic events have pointed out the necessity of ensuring the integrity for structures
under “exceptional” events. Since many years, the University of Liège is involved in different
activities and projects mainly related to the robustness assessment of structures. The robustness of
a structure is the capacity of the system to remain globally stable after events not directly ac-
counted for in the design, like impact, fire or consequences of a human error, leading to a reason-
able damage when compared to the original cause. Particular attention has been dedicated to the
loss of column scenario with analytical and numerical investigations. As a contribution to differ-
ent European projects (FREEDAM and ROBUSTIMPACT), experimental campaigns have been
carried out or are currently undergoing, with the aim of understanding the behaviour of different
joint typologies under impact loads. The experimental campaigns have the goal to underline the
influence of the strain-rate of the joint components on the behaviour of the tested connections. In
the present paper, an overview on the design criteria for the ongoing experimental campaign, on
the preliminary results and findings is given and critically analysed. Particularly, an application in
the field of the FREEDAM project is presented.
Disciplines :
Civil engineering
Author, co-author :
D'Antimo, Marina ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département ArGEnCo > HECE (Hydraulics in Environnemental and Civil Engineering)
