ABSTRACT
In recent years, design guidelines for rack structures have been improved and updated in Europe, the USA and Australia. However, the Chinese design guideline for rack structures was established in 1990 and is no longer suitable for applications to the modern rack systems. Particularly, there are no practical regulations available for seismic design of racks in China. Substantial investigations on static and dynamic analyses of rack structures were carried out in China. This paper presents a review on recent studies of rack structure in China: (i) introduces the current design guidelines in China. (ii) reviews and summarises on the major research developments in members, connections and systems including continuous perforated uprights, upright frames, beam-to-upright connections, base plates, and rack systems. (iii) Finally, on the basis of current research developments, the critical problems to establish simple and reliable design methods for rack structures are provided.
