Shake Table Testing of a Full-Scale Five-Story Building: Performance of the Major Nonstructural Components - Egress and Façades

A full-scale, five-story building was constructed on the [email protected] large, high-performance shake table and subjected to a series of earthquake motions while supported at its base in two different configurations. The building was completely furnished with nonstructural components and systems (NCSs) including: a functioning passenger elevator, prefabricated stairs, façades, partition walls, piping, HVAC, ceiling, sprinklers, building contents, as well as passive and active fire systems. The program included testing the building in a base-isolated configuration -- prior to testing it fixed at its base -- with earthquakes of increasing severity imposed on the building in both configurations. In this paper, the performance of two major NCSs is of primary interest, namely the egress subsystems (elevator and stairs) and façades (balloon framing overlaid by stucco and precast concrete cladding). Physical observations and measured seismic response of these subsystems and the associated impact on post-earthquake fire performance are presented.