Seismic behaviour of storage racks made of thin-walled steel members

This paper presents an example of rack structure modelling accounting for structural non-linearities and for the possible relative motion between the rack and the stored goods that occurs as soon as the inertial force exceeds the friction resistance. It evidences that the constant reduction factor proposed by the RMI should actually be modulated according to the structural typology (and in particular the first natural frequency of the system) and to the ratio ag/μ between the design acceleration and the friction coefficient of the pallets.