Evaluation of the seismic capacity of nonstructural components

Nonstructural components (NSC) economic impact and the extensive damages due to NSC after an earthquake motivate the research studies conducted in the past few years at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Archi-tecture, University of Naples Federico II on this topic. The seismic qualification of continuous ceiling systems, plasterboard and brick internal partitions via shake ta-ble tests is described in the paper. The test campaign on continuous ceiling sys-tems highlights the low fragility of the tested specimen, primarily caused by: (a) the continuous nature of the ceiling, (b) the dense suspen-sion grid, and (c) the large number of hangers being used. In order to test the internal partitions, which are mainly displacement-sensitive components, an appropriate steel test structure is designed. This structure simulates the behavior of a generic floor in a structure that exhibits an interstorey drift equal to 0.5% for a frequent earthquake, according to Eurocode 8 prescriptions. Three possible damage states are considered in the study and correlated to an engineering demand parameter, i.e. the interstorey drift ratio, through the use of a damage scheme. Extensive tests show an excellent seismic performance of the plasterboard partition walls, which are characterized by innovative anti-seismic details. In fact, they show minor damage when subject-ed to interstorey drifts even larger than 1%. The shake table tests performed at dif-ferent intensity levels on hollow brick partitions, widespread in the European zone, denote significant damage in the tested specimen for 0.3% interstorey drift and extensive damage for drift close to 1%.