Validating the sliding mechanics of office-type furniture using shake-table experiments

Pull-tests and shake-table tests of office-type furniture on carpet and vinyl flooring were performed to obtain friction coefficients, and validate the mechanics of content sliding and current modelling approaches. The static friction coefficient, μs, for furniture with and without wheels was between 0.13-0.30 and 0.36-0.45 on carpet flooring, respectively, and 0.07-0.13 and 0.39-0.45 on vinyl flooring, respectively. The kinetic friction coefficient, μk, was similar to μs for carpet flooring, but was up to 38% lower for vinyl flooring. Shake-table tests using sinusoidal floor excitations showed that: (i) the sliding force hysteresis loop was elasto-plastic on average, and (ii) peak total floor velocity significantly affected the extent of sliding. While it was found that the maximum sliding displacement obtained by numerical integration methods differed by a factor between 0.3 and 3.0 on a case-by-case basis, the average error was just 5%. Preliminary sliding analyses of furniture resting on single-degree-of-freedom structures of varying stiffness using a suite of ground motion records were performed. It was found that (i) the extent of sliding was not necessarily more severe in stiffer buildings despite the greater peak total floor acceleration demands, and (ii) considering only μk in content sliding analyses still produced reasonably accurate predictions.