Collapse Mechanism of Wide-Area Suspended Ceiling Based on Full-Scale Shake Table Experiment of School Gymnasium

Abstract eng:
In the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake, a lot of suspended ceilings suffered damage and collapsed due to lack of their seismic performance. New seismic standards for wide-area suspended ceiling have been in effect from April 2014 in Japan. In the new standards, screw fastening to the connection of metal parts, a lot of bracings and clearance between ceilings and walls are required. However, collapse mechanism of ceiling is not yet clarified enough and effective seismic countermeasures are needed. To identify the collapse mechanism of non-seismic ceiling and evaluate seismic performance of seismically designed ceiling, two series of full-scale shake table experiment is conducted. The specimen is designed as the steel school gymnasium with suspended ceiling. Structural members are designed based on the current Japanese code. In the gymnasium specimen, two different types of ceiling are installed; one is the non-seismic ceiling designed as the typical ceiling without any seismic countermeasures, the other is the seismically designed ceiling based on new seismic standards for ceiling. Based on the experiment, collapse mechanism is clarified. In the case of non-seismic ceiling under sloped roof, collapse initiated by up-lifting moment around side wall. In the case of seismically designed ceilings, the failure mechanism depends on the balance of the strength of braces and metal connections between braces and frame.

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