Interaction of Suspended Ceilings and Pressurized Piping in a Full-scale 10-story Cold-formed Steel Building Shake Table Program

A 10-story cold-formed steel (CFS) building, referred to as CFS10, was constructed and tested at the 6-DOF Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST6) at UC San Diego (NHERI@UC San Diego). This unique building specimen was designed beyond current seismic provisions, notably exceeding the height limit as prescribed in ASCE 7-22 and employing shear wall detailing that is currently not available in the most recent AISI S400-20 design standard. The test specimen was additionally outfitted with a wide range of nonstructural components and systems, designed and installed at various levels of the building, to understand the evolution of damage in a real building system under multi-directional seismic excitation. Limiting damage to nonstructural components plays a key role in maintaining or regaining post-earthquake building functionality. To this end, an essential aspect of the test program is to improve upon the key gaps in the state of knowledge of nonstructural seismic performance and functional recovery of buildings, especially in CFS-framed buildings. This paper presents preliminary observations of damage and functionality correlated with the measured seismic response of select nonstructural systems, namely suspended ceilings, and pressurized fire sprinkler and gas piping systems, focusing on their performance and interactions at the ceiling of Story 10 in the building. Observations related to damage and functionality can inform the development of fragility functions for these nonstructural systems and support improved functional recovery design provisions.

Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Seismic Performance of Non-Structural Elements (SPONSE), Yokohama, Japan.