Progetto esecutivo RELUIS Linea 7 - Task 7 "Metodologie di progettazione ed affidabilità di edifici protetti con sistemi di dissipazione sismica"

The technologies for the control of the seismic structural vibrations have been greatly developed in the last decades, with several applications all over the world. Their effectiveness is proved by laboratory and field tests as well as by their excellent performances during recent earthquakes, especially in Japan. It is nowadays acknowledged that they allow structures to achieve higher safety levels than conventional structures, even when designed by using modern seismic criteria. Their diffusion, if favoured by reliable and optimised norms, would permit to achieve a sensible reduction of the seismic risk (Soong and Spencer, 2002; Kelly, 2004; Whittaker and Constantinou, 2004). In Italy the development and the practical exploitation of the advantages of these technologies has been slowed down by the lack of a specific norm. The enforcement of the Ordinance 3274 (PCdM, 2003), including two chapters on the seismic isolation of buildings and bridges, represented a turning point for their practical use, removing many of the difficulties (from both the bureaucratic and technical points of view) usually encountered by the designers wishing to adopt these technologies in new or existing constructions. However, at the time when the ReLUIS Executive Project started (November 2005), there were still several problems which needed further studies, to make applications more and more reliable and easy. Some of them have been dealt with and solved by the Research Units of Project Line No. 7, who also gave their contribution toward the issuing of the relevant parts of the New Technical Regulations for Constructions (Min. Infr., 2008) and Commentary (Min. Infr., 2009), so that today many new strategic buildings in Italy are provided with seismic isolation and/or supplemental energy dissipation systems.