Full-scale shake table testing method for seismic assessment of nonstructural elements using a universal testbed and a standard building-specific loading protocol

Abstract

Nonstructural elements play a pivotal role in maintaining the functionality of buildings, making their seismic resilience a critical focus in research and engineering practices in the past few decades. A building-specific standardized assessment procedure is implemented to evaluate the seismic performance of nonstructural elements in a building, considering the specific seismic risks. Time history analyses of a tall building subjected to a series of design spectrum-compatible ground motions demonstrated the necessity of building-specific considerations in standard testing. Consequently, a standard loading protocol accounting for the dynamic characteristics of the archetype building was established. This study further extends the protocol to enable testing of two adjacent floors of the archetype building through Nonstructural Element Simulator on Shake Table (NEST). The universal testbed, NEST, was employed to replicate boundary and load conditions representative of real-world scenarios for multiple nonstructural elements. A nonlinear control algorithm that enables the NEST testbed to reproduce the proposed loading protocol accurately was developed in the numerical domain. Full-scale shake table tests validated the proposed method, demonstrating its capability to replicate the building-specific loading protocol with errors below 30 %. The experimental results showed that the contents sustained varying degrees of damage under the design-basis earthquake in the archetype tall building. Additionally, the proposed loading protocol proved effective in identifying the sensitive frequency component of the contents.