Photo credit: © Alex Filz - Stahlbau Pichler
Photo credit: © Alex Filz - Stahlbau Pichler
In the earthquake that struck Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy in 2012, a company specializing in the production of porcelain stoneware wall tiles and floors suffered serious damage. It was necessary to rebuild the production area with a new vertical automatic warehouse (‘MAV’). The design was for a highly innovative structure, made entirely with structural steel, that was the first construction of this type designed according to new technical standards for the response of buildings to seismic actions.
The building stands on the previous site and has a footprint of about 134m x 26m with a height of 18m. The storage elements are developed for 16m in height and are of a single-seat and two-seat type. The five frames with double-seat cells are arranged in the centre of the building, while the two shoulders with single-seat cells are on the sides of the warehouse. The load levels are supported by 64 metal frames with a total capacity of 18,852 pallets on 13 levels.
The steel braced gratings that form the frames are made up of uprights in tubular profiles 140 x 70 mm with thicknesses varying from 8 to 10 mm. The diagonals are in corner profiles while the crosspieces in U-shaped sections. The entire steel structure is of S355JR steel class and hot dip galvanized for corrosion protection.
