Description du projet
Une autre façon de protéger les bâtiments contre les catastrophes
Les événements extrêmes comme les séismes et les explosions ne brisent pas uniquement des vitres et des murs. Ils exercent également une pression sur les structures des bâtiments, endommageant les éléments critiques et peuvent entraîner à terme un «effondrement progressif». Les stratégies de conception actuelles consistent à redistribuer la charge sur le reste du bâtiment au cas où les éléments critiques seraient endommagés. Cette méthode n’est toutefois pas parfaite. Une éventuelle alternative consisterait en une segmentation fusible isolant les différentes parties du bâtiment et évitant ainsi le risque d’effondrement progressif. Dans ce contexte, le projet Endure, financé par l’UE, développera une méthode innovante de conception de segmentation basée sur les fusibles afin de limiter la propagation des défaillances. Le projet concevra, produira et testera également des fusibles pour la segmentation des bâtiments et mettra en œuvre des fusibles dans des prototypes réalistes de bâtiments segmentés.
Objectif
Extreme events often cause local-initial damage to the critical elements of building structures, followed by a cascade of further failures in the rest of the building; a phenomenon known as “progressive collapse”. Current design philosophies are based on giving buildings extensive continuity, so that when a critical element fails its load can be re-distributed among the rest of the structure. However, in certain situations (e.g. initial failure of several columns) this extensive continuity introduces undesirable effects and actually increases the risk of progressive collapse.
Segmenting a building into individual units connected only by means of fuses would avoid a failure in one zone propagating to others. While such fuses would provide continuity for normal loads or small local-initial failure, they would “isolate” the different parts of the building when otherwise the forces generated by the initial failure would pull down the rest of the structure. Although fuse segmentation is probably the only alternative that can fill the gaps in the present design philosophies, so far, no studies have been carried out on the possibility of applying it to buildings.
Endure’s overall aim is to develop a novel fuse-based segmentation design approach to limit or arrest the propagation of failures in building structures subjected to extreme events.
The project will be multidisciplinary and highly ambitious, and will achieve its overall aim by: 1) Developing a performance-based approach for the design of fuse-segmented buildings; 2) Designing, manufacturing and testing fuses for segmenting buildings; and 3) Implementing fuses in segmented realistic building prototypes and testing and validating the new fuse-based approach in these structures.
Endure will open up a new research area and design approach, and also deliver novel construction procedures. The project will lead to safer buildings, especially in the case of extreme events with severe consequences for building integrity.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitution d’accueil
46022 Valencia
Espagne