Earthquake Protection of Building Equipment and Systems




Preface

Historically, earthquake protection of active equipment and building distribution systems

(i.e.,

nonstructural category) has been treated as an afterthought. Products designated as

nonstructural

were designed by manufacturers without specific regard to seismic require-

ments. Seismic

bracing was sometimes added during installation. Stated simply, earth-

quake protective measures were typically addressed outside of the product development

process for most essential building systems. This situation left the equipment supplier

unaware of the requirements and detached from the changing evolution in earthquake

protection. The nonstructural component was treated as a "black box"-the primary con-

cern

was meeting building code anchorage requirements. For decades this was the status

quo for nonstructural protection.

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