Dataset from the shake table tests of free-standing rocking bodies

Abstract

The state-of-the-art in structural model validation in Earthquake Engineering involves the comparison of a numerical time history response to an experimental benchmark one. It has been shown that this is a sufficient (but not necessary) precondition to accept a numerical model: Numerical models can fail to predict the planar rocking response of a rigid block, but succeed in predicting the statistics of the response to an ensemble of ground motions. As seismic response is inherently stochastic, this is a sufficient (and easier to pass) test. This paper describes the publicly available data of a set of 12 free rocking vibration and 100 shake table tests of 6 3D rocking and sliding columns. The data can be used to statistically validate approaches to model 3D rocking structures.