Estimation of the Behavior Factor of Steel Storage Pallet Racks

Abstract eng:
European Racking Federation (ERF) is currently developing normative documents for the seismic design of pallet racks due to lack of sufficient design rules and bibliography. The special geometry of these thin-walled members of high slenderness and their non linear behaviour require specific rules for a successful and accurate modeling. The design of these non-traditional steel structures is even more complicated in seismic zones, where they must be able to withstand horizontal and vertical dynamic forces. Furthermore, the analysis must represent the additional limit state of the fall of pallets, which would lead to the subsequent damage to goods, people and to the structure itself. Bracing systems are widely used to enhance the stiffness of the structures under seismic loads. Braced systems exhibit, however, unwanted phenomena, such as torsional dynamic modes. On the other hand, unbraced systems have translational modes and uncoupled behaviour, but they are very flexible. In this paper, the earthquake performance of such structures is investigated using pushover analyses. The work presented, is a part of a research project which is carried out within the framework of the European Research Program SEISRACKS 2. Detailed analyses of components using finite elements software are performed in order to clarify their failure and post-failure behaviour. Finally, a comparison of the available q factor and the used value during the design takes place to verify the efficiency of the design procedure

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