Implementing low-damage building technologies: an overview of energy dissipation in Italy.

Traditional approaches for the seismic protection of buildings consider the following assumptions: the building is not damaged after a minor earthquake, the building is reparable after a moderate earthquake, and the building will not suffer collapses after severe earthquakes. Following several destructive earthquakes occurred in the past decade, the general public or building owners are no longer satisfied with the above performance objectives, because of the economic implications related to this approach. The main objective of the low-damage technologies is to provide damage reduction in the primary structural elements, non-structural elements and building contents, by designing new forms of lateral load resisting structures consisting in seismic isolation, supplemental damping or careful detailing, where damage is limited to some replaceable elements. Recently, several theoretical and experimental studies have been carried out in order to verify the effectiveness of several low-damage seismic protection techniques and solutions, such as seismic isolation and energy dissipation systems. This paper proposes an overview on recent experimental investigations regarding energy dissipation system developed for reinforced concrete buildings, masonry or timber structures and some practical applications in Italy of dissipative bracing systems for the retrofit of existing buildings schools.