Approximately 70% to 85% of the cost of buildings comes from nonstructural components. Thus, even though losses are a result of the motion of the structure, a large portion of the potential losses to owners, occupants, insurance companies and other financial institutions is associated with non-structural components. Furthermore, in buildings, damage to most types of non-structural components is triggered at levels of deformation much smaller than those required to initiate structural damage. Thus, it is not surprising that the majority of earthquake losses are produced by nonstructural components. The performance and cost of non-structural components and contents of commercial buildings are investigated in this research. Nonstructural components commonly installed in various types of buildings have been identified and classified. Nonstructural components are classified according to the type of building in which they are installed, the type of non-structural component according to their function, and the type of building response parameters to which they are more vulnerable. Special emphasis has been placed on nonstructural components commonly installed in commercial and institutional buildings. Information on performance of nonstructural components in previous earthquakes have been collected and classified. Emphasis was placed on buildings that are instrumented and that allow a direct correlation between the level of building response and the level of damage to various types of nonstructural components. A database that provides easy and well-organized access to a large amount of information on nonstructural components has been developed. The database contains information such as: types of nonstructural components commonly installed in buildings; typical costs of nonstructural components; digital images of undamaged nonstructural components; performance of nonstructural components in previous earthquakes; digital images of damaged nonstructural components in previous earthquakes, levels of structural motion that triggered the damage, etc.
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