The Pseudo-dynamic Testing Facility at UNINA: Preliminary Test on a RC Frame

Existing reinforced concrete buildings in the Mediterranean area are very vulnerable to seismic actions due to lack of proper seismic detailing and poor quality of concrete. Furthermore, they are likely to exhibit significant earthquake damage to non-structural components such as infills and partitions. Reconstruction processes followed to recent seismic events remarked that the repair of non-structural components represents the majority of the repair costs. This makes the study of the seismic response of hollow clay brick infills and their interaction with the surrounding RC frame of paramount importance. Although number of analytical and experimental studies are available on this topic, experimental tests on full scale multistorey RC frame are still lacking. This paper presents the novel experimental facility for pseudo-dynamic tests available the University of Napoli Federico II and the preliminary results on a full-scale two storey infilled RC frame. An-in depth discussion on the design of the experimental test, the input selection and the sub-structuring is reported together with the experimental response and the validation of the testing procedure.