Motion analysis of furniture under seismic excitation using the finite element method

Abstract

Abstract Improperly secured furniture, especially on the upper floors of high‐rise buildings under long‐period ground motion, can prove dangerous to human life. Fallen items of furniture such as chairs and desks could become fatal obstacles that prevent efficient evacuation. In this research, an effective numerical code for analyzing the motion of furniture subjected to seismic excitations was developed. The numerical code is based on the adaptively shifted integration — Gauss technique, which is a finite element scheme that provides higher computational efficiency than the conventional code. The frictional contact between objects was fully considered by employing a sophisticated penalty method. Various excitation tests of furniture were conducted on a shake‐table. In the experiments, steel cabinets were excited by seismic waves and displacement data were recorded by a motion capture system. The numerical results were validated through a comparison with the shake‐table test results.

Keywords

• ASI–Gauss technique
• finite element method
• furniture
• motion analysis
• penalty method