Seismic Performance Evaluation of Plasterboard Partitions via Shake Table Tests

Bidirectional shake table tests are performed to investigate the seismic behavior of innovative plasterboard partitions. Such partitions are designed in order to not interfere with the hosting structure up to moderate level of interstorey drifts (about 0.5%). The table input is provided through acceleration time histories representative of expected/target ground motion at a given story. The time histories are artificially defined in order to match the ICBO-AC156 code prescriptions. To investigate a wide range of interstorey drift demand and seismic damage, the shakes are performed scaling the accelerograms at 11 different intensity levels. The tested plasterboard partitions exhibit a good seismic behavior, both in their own plane and out of plane, showing limited damage up to 1.1% interstorey drift ratio. The correlation between the dynamic characteristics of the test setup and the recorded damage is evidenced.