A landmark experimental program was conducted to advance the understanding of nonstructural system performance during earthquakes. The centerpiece of this effort involved shake table testing a full‐scale five‐story reinforced concrete building furnished with a broad variety of nonstructural components and systems (NCSs) including complete and operable egress, mechanical and electrical systems, facades, and architectural layouts. The building‐NCS system was subjected to a suite of earthquake motions of increasing intensity, while base‐isolated and then fixed at its base. In this paper, the major components of the test specimen, including the structure and its NCSs, the monitoring systems, and the seismic test protocol are described in detail. Important response and damage characteristics of the structure are also presented. A companion paper describes the damage observed for the various NCSs and correlates these observations with the structure's response.

Reliable and accurate measurements of temperature and strain in structures subjected to fire can be difficult to obtain using traditional sensing technologies based on electrical signals. Fiber optic sensors, which are based on light signals, solve many of the problems of monitoring structures in high temperature environments; however, they present their own challenges. This paper, which is intended for structural engineers new to fiber optic sensors, reviews various fiber optic sensors that have been used to make measurements in structure fires, including the sensing principles, fabrication, key characteristics, and recently-reported applications. Three categories of fiber optic sensors are reviewed: Grating-based sensors, interferometer sensors, and distributed sensors.

Nonstructural components and systems (NCSs) provide little to no load bearing capacity to a building; however, they are essential to support its operability. As a result, 75–85% of the initial building financial investment is associated with these elements. The vulnerability of NCSs even during low intensity earthquakes is repeatedly exposed, resulting in large economic losses, disruption of building functionality, and concerns for life safety. This paper describes and classifies damage to NCSs observed during landmark shake table tests of a full‐scale five‐story reinforced concrete building furnished with a broad variety of NCSs. This system‐level test program provides a unique dataset due to the completeness and complexity of the investigated NCSs. Results highlight that the interactions between disparate nonstructural systems, in particular displacement compatibility, as well as the interactions between the NCSs and the building structure often govern their seismic performance.

Measuring the deformation of building elements engulfed by flames is essential in fire research to improve safety in the event of a fire. Ideally, the measurement system should be non-contact, able to range at the millimeter to meter scale with sub-mm precision, and have sufficient speed to capture temperature-induced deformations of the target object. To date, no ranging technology has been demonstrated that meets those requirements while imaging through flames. Here, we show that coherent laser detection and ranging (LADAR) can provide three-dimensional images of objects hidden behind methane or acetylene flames with sufficiently high precision to track their deformation. The heterodyne detection of coherent frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) LADAR allows the ranging signal to be detected in the presence of strong radiation of the flames. We measure three-dimensional point clouds of diffusely scattering complex surfaces with a precision of less than 30 μm at 2-meter stand-off distance, despite soot-induced signal loss and steering (refraction) of the ranging laser by the flames. Movies of the heat-induced surface deformation of objects illustrate the temporal performance. These data show that FMCW LADAR can quantify the deformation and movement of objects in fires, when non-contact shape measurements at stand-off distances of multiple meters are crucial.