Seismic fragility assessment of non-structural drywall partitions with screw and adhesive fixing through multi-axis cyclic testing

Abstract

Drywall partitions are the most common type of non-structural walls used in modern multi-story buildings. Damage investigation of these walls during the past earthquakes has shown their vulnerability under small to moderate inter-story drifts leading to significant economic losses. To propose innovative solutions to this problem, accurate damage assessment must be conducted using the data obtained from realistic experiments. In this study, the classic performance-based earthquake engineering framework is used as a method for performing a probabilistic estimation of damage progression in the drywall partitions in a limited-ductility reinforced-concrete building. The Multi-Axis Substructure Testing system at Swinburne University of Technology is used to conduct large-scale three-dimensional cyclic tests on two assemblies of drywall partitions. The assemblies included two types of fixings, namely, screw fixing as a common construction method, and adhesive fixing recently developed for mitigating the creaking noise under serviceability wind loads. The results of the experiments are used to define three levels of damage states to produce fragility curves of drywall systems given the building inter-story drifts. Vulnerability curves are then developed to account for the uncertainties in the building response due to record-to-record variability, and the factors controlling the progression of damage in partition walls such as the variability in material and construction quality.