New technology to protect structures against earthquake - SPIDER Project

Retrofitting of buildings for earthquake protection is becoming an important market. The traditional method and seismic isolation induce costly works and building out of operation. Dissemination of energy dissipation devices, quite promising, is also limited. A new technology is developed within the EC granted project SPIDER (Strands Prestressing for internal damping of earthquake response). This technology is based on the coupling in-series of dampers and cables allowing thus energy dissipation. A consortium composed by 3 industrial partners, an engineering company, a university, a testing laboratory and a national agency is elaborating this new technology. The project started the 1st March 2000. Its duration is 30 months. The project comprises both experimental and numerical analyses. The aim is to validate the damper / cable system via the development of prototypes and tests on a full-scale mock-up. In parallel, these tests are used to calibrate specific numerical tools.