Major advances have been observed in the last decade in seismic engineering with further refinements of performance-based seismic design philo sophies and the definition of corresponding compliance criteria. Following the worldwide recognized expectation and ideal aim to provide a modern society with high (seismic) performance structures able to sustain a design level earthquake with limited or negligible damage, emerging solutions have been developed for high-performance, still cost-effective, seismic resisting systems, based on adequate combination of traditional materials and available technology. In this series of three contributions an overview of the development of emerging solutions for damage-resisting systems, based on dry jointed ductile connections, which rely on the use of unbonded post-tensioned tendons to connect prefabricated elements, will be given. Main aspects related to the conceptual behaviour and design criteria will be discussed based on the extensive experimental testing. In conclusion few examples taken from the several on site-applications worldwide will be given, as a confirmation of the rapid and increasingly wide acceptance of such construction technique within different construction markets and realities.
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