Studio sperimentale su piastre piegate per collegare i pannelli orizzontali in strutture prefabbricate

Common practice related to precast concrete cladding panel connections in Southern Europe showed a poor performance through the recent seismic events. The intervention techniques that have been adopted on horizontal panels regarded in many cases the post-insertion of several thick steel angles between panel and column, increasing the degree of coupling between structure and panels and driving within the post-inserted fasteners very large forces, difficultly compatible with their resistance. The present paper proposes an alternative steel profile made with an asymmetrically W-bent steel plate, able to provide the necessary panel out-of-plane resistance, allowing contemporarily large panel in-plane displacements through a stable flexible-plastic hysteretic behaviour, limiting forces by yielding. The experimental results confirm the correct operating principle, highlighting a good energy dissipation behaviour, that could also improve the seismic behaviour of the whole structure.