Nonstructural systems constitute a significant portion of the total property of a typical building. Recent earthquakes have repeatedly demonstrated that nonstructural damage results in significant loss of property and function with major catastrophic impact on communities. In a collaborative project between the NSF NEES program and the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention of Japan, a full-scale, five-story steel moment frame building was subjected to a number of 2D and 3D ground motions using the E-Defense shake table. The building was tested under three different configurations: 1) base isolated with triple pendulum bearings (TPB), 2) base isolated with a combination of lead-rubber bearings and cross linear bearings (LRB/CLB), and 3) base fixed. As part of a NEESR-GC project on the "Simulation of the Seismic Performance of Nonstructural Systems," more than 75 m 2 (800 sq-ft) of suspended ceiling with lay-in tiles and 3 sprinkler branch lines were installed on the 4th and 5th floors of the building. The ceiling was enclosed by light gauge stud gypsum partition walls. This paper presents some of the preliminary observations on the response of nonstructural systems from these experiments.
For the first time, an analytical modeling methodology is developed for fire sprinkler piping systems and used to generate seismic fragility parameters of these systems. The analytical model accounts for inelastic behavior constituents of the system, including: threaded joints, solid braces, hangers, and restrainers. The model incorporates a newly developed hysteresis model for threaded tee joints that is validated by the experimental results of several tee subassemblies. The modeling technique at the subsystem level is validated by using the experimental results of a sprinkler piping system. The methodology is used to obtain the seismic response of the fire sprinkler piping system of University of California, San Francisco Hospital under a suite of 96 artificially generated triaxial floor acceleration histories. After the component fragility parameters are obtained for the components of the system, three system-level damage states are defined, and a joint probabilistic seismic demand model is utilized to develop system fragility parameters.
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