Shake table investigation on the seismic performance of hospital equipment supported on wheels/casters

Summary This paper presents an experimental investigation on the seismic response of medical equipment supported on wheels and/or casters. Two pieces of equipment were tested: a large ultrasound machine and a cart carrying smaller medical equipment. In the first phase, the resistance of the wheels and casters of the equipment was characterized through a controlled‐displacement procedure on the shake table. In the second phase, an extensive shake table test program was carried out to investigate the seismic response of the equipment. The input signals for the shake table tests included floor motions of a four‐story steel braced‐frame hospital designed to satisfy seismic requirements of a site in the Los Angeles area. The results of 96 shake table tests reported in this study include the seismic performance of the equipment under both unlocked and locked conditions, located on various floor levels of the building. It was observed that engaging the casters' locking mechanism does not necessarily decrease the relative displacement. The displacement response was sensitive to the excitation intensity and the orientation of the equipment with respect to the input excitation. Based on the experimental observations, appropriate structural engineering demand parameters associated with the relative displacement and relative velocity demands of the equipment are proposed and used to develop conditional probability curves. Finally, in an effort to extend the results of this experimental study to similar equipment on wheels/casters, the performance of a simple numerical model in predicting the peak seismic demands is evaluated. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.