Development and Testing of a Friction/Sliding Connection to Improve the Seismic Performance of Gypsum Partition Walls

Observed earthquake damage, laboratory tests, and loss analyses have shown gypsum partition walls to be susceptible to earthquake damage under small story drift ratios, which can result in large losses under design earthquake ground motions. To mitigate this risk, a new friction/sliding connection is proposed that can minimize or prevent damage to partition walls for story drift ratios of 1% or more. The proposed friction/sliding connection isolates the partition wall from the structure while providing sufficient resistance to support out-of-plane forces on the wall induced by inertial effects. Test results of three prototype connections and two full-scale wall partition specimens, with and without the friction connection detail, are summarized to demonstrate the improved performance that can be achieved with the proposed friction/sliding connection. Whereas the test of the conventional wall specimen began experiencing damage at 0.1 to 0.3% story drift ratio, the wall specimen with the connection could undergo drifts up to about 1.5% without any damage.