Experimental Performance of Pendulum Base Isolators for Seismic Protection of Busts and Statues

Artistic assets are highly vulnerable to natural hazards. Past earthquakes have caused worldwide enormous losses due to either extensive damage or collapse of artefacts. Thus, there is an urgent need to protect efficiently artistic assets in earthquake prone regions. Seismic base isolation is a mature technique that can provide a viable solution for such assets. However, the performance of existing seismic isolation devices, e.g. pendulum devices, is not sufficiently investigated, both experimentally and numerically. Statues, busts, pedestals and museum displays are typically lightweight elements, thus the relatively low weight can affect the friction response of pendulum devices. The present paper illustrates the outcomes of a comprehensive experimental test programme aimed to investigate the seismic response of museum contents and develop risk mitigation strategies to improve their seismic resilience. Several layouts and different earthquake scenarios were considered for the shake-table tests carried out at CEA laboratory, Saclay, France on free-standing full scale pedestals and busts. The outcomes of the experimental tests discussed hereafter demonstrate the efficiency of pendulum devices and highlight the presence of amplification in the response of multiple block assemblages comprising pedestal and busts, for relatively low-values of accelerations. Additional studies should be carried out to investigate whether the modes of vibration of the unanchored multiple blocks on base isolation systems are beneficial for the global response of the art objects, including pedestals and busts/statues.