Dynamic Characterization and Seismic Performance of a Fully-Floating Ceiling with Velcro-Secured Lay-in Tiles via Shake Table Tests

Grid-and-tile suspended ceilings, commonly used in commercial buildings, have historically suffered significant damage during earthquakes leading to financial losses, business disruption, and life-safety hazards. This study investigates the dynamic characteristics and seismic performance of a fully-floating ceiling, a low-damage ceiling concept that incorporates Velcro-secured lay-in tiles. In this system, Velcro tape, a novel addition, is used to secure the tiles to the Tees, aiming to prevent tile dislodgement during shaking. The ceiling was installed on the second storey of a three-storey steel-framed building and tested on a shake table under unidirectional and bidirectional shaking. These tests were part of the RObust BUilding SysTem (ROBUST) project, conducted at the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering at Tongji University, China. During the experiments, the fully-floating ceiling was subjected to peak floor accelerations of up to 0.60 g simultaneously in the longitudinal and transverse directions (vector resultant of 0.85 g). The system exhibited median fundamental modal periods of 0.31 s and 0.40 s in the two orthogonal horizontal directions, with median damping ratios ranging from 2.39% to 3.63%. The peak displacement reached 40.6 mm, and the ceiling remained insensitive to torsional effects. The median acceleration amplification factor in the horizontal directions was 2.16, and the maximum vertical peak component ceiling acceleration was 1.01 g. No pounding between sprinkler heads and lay-in tiles was observed. Throughout the testing program, no damage was observed. These findings highlight the potential of the fully-floating ceiling as a low-damage, seismically resilient solution for use in buildings located in earthquake-prone regions.