Ricerc@Sapienza

Recent lessons from past earthquakes repeatedly showed the vulnerability of existing buildings and of non-structural
elements. In the past decades, efforts have mainly focused on improving the seismic performance of the structural
skeleton. Although buildings designed according to modern and recent seismic codes generally performed as expected
by securing the human life, the observed damage was often deemed too expensive to be repaired and stakeholders often
preferred to demolish and rebuild the buildings. For this reason, within a performance-based seismic design approach,
the attention is nowadays focusing on two main objectives: 1) the harmonization of performance objectives between

structural and non-structural elements; 2) the development of damage-control or low-damage structural and non-
structural systems.

Within the framework of an EU-funded SERA project, titled “(Towards the) Ultimate Earthquake proof Building
System: development and testing of integrated low-damage technologies for structural and non-structural elements”, a
two-storey 1:2 scale fully prefabricated and dry-assembled timber-concrete low-damage integrated building system,
comprising different high performance or damage-resistant non-structural elements (facades, light and heavy partitions),
has been tested on a 3D shake-table at the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC) in Lisbon.
The experimental program consisted in one - two - and three - dimensional seismic tests performed at increasing
intensities. The selected input ground motions were representative of spectral-compatible earthquakes at various level of
code-based limit states up to Collapse Prevention.
This paper provides the preliminary results of the experimental campaign focusing on the seismic performance of the

two typologies of partition wall tested, specifically 1) the fiber-reinforced ceramic gypsum partitions and 2) the low-
damage masonry infill wall. After an initial description of the detailing, the assembly/construction phases and the

monitoring system of these elements, the test results are presented in terms of peak floor accelerations and maximum
inter-storey drifts in order to investigate the seismic demand at which the non-structural elements were subjected. The
seismic performance of the partition walls is then described, focusing on both their global behaviour and the observed
damage. Finally, dynamic identification by impact hammer is also provided for the two partition walls.