Dissipative bracing and damped cable system-base seismic retrofit hypotheses of a steel building

Two alternative seismic protection technologies, and relevant hypotheses of application to the retrofit of an Italian pre-normative steel school building, are examined in this paper. The two technologies consist in a dissipative bracing system, and a damped cable system, both incorporating pressurized fluid viscous dampers as protecting devices. The essential characteristics and performance of the two systems, along with their analytical/computational modelling criteria, are recalled in the first part of this paper. The dimensions, layouts and locations selected for the constituting elements of the two rehabilitation solutions are then discussed. A synthesis of the nonlinear dynamic analyses and performance-based evaluations carried out on the case study building, in original and protected conditions, is finally proposed.