Numerical Simulation of Ceiling Collapse in Full-Scale Gymnasium Specimen using ASI-Gauss Technique

Abstract


Many ceiling collapse accidents were observed during the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and have been observed during other earthquakes in Japan. A numerical seismic simulation of the collapse of the ceiling in a full-scale gymnasium specimen, which was tested at the E-Defense shaking table facility in 2014 [1], was conducted. The numerical model represented steel structural frames and a suspended ceiling. All of the members were modeled using linear Timoshenko beam elements. The adaptively shifted integration–Gauss technique, which shifts the numerical integration point adaptively to an appropriate position, was applied to a nonlinear finite element analysis of this structurally discontinuous problem. The preliminary simulation results showed that ceiling collapse progressed owing to detachment of the clips that connected the ceiling joists to the ceiling joist receivers and eventually resulted in the ceiling falling down.


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