Shake table testing for seismic performance evaluation of non-structural elements

In the last years an increasing interest has been addressed to the assessment of the expected mean annual losses of single buildings as well as of building portfolio(s). Field observation of damage/failure in the aftermath of past earthquakes demonstrates that the losses related to the non-structural elements could significantly exceed the structural losses. At the same time, it is worth noting that the damage related to the non-structural elements could affect the functionality of the buildings and critical facilities. Based on these considerations, a detailed assessment of the expected annual losses requires data both on the structural and non-structural elements. In comparison to structural elements and systems, however, there is much less information and experimental data to undertake the assessment and design of non-structural elements for multiple-performance levels. Shake table testing could thus be very useful to assess the seismic performance of non-structural elements and to achieve the required information for loss estimation studies. In this paper, the results of shake table testing of acceleration-sensitive non-structural elements are presented. Equivalent single degree of freedom numerical models of the analyzed acceleration-sensitive non-structural element was developed using the results of the tests and a performance evaluation was carried out.