Study on the Furniture During Earthquake by Using Prevention of Furniture Fall.

Abstract

Japan is earthquake-prone country. Buildings went collapsed by major earthquake, and many people got injured. Therefore, building has been adapted seismic protection. As a result, collapse of buildings was decreased. However, falling of furniture brought about human damages of 30 ~ 50 % by earthquake. It is necessary to prevent falling of furniture. Today, there are a lot of furniture fall prevention devices. Nevertheless, these devices are not popular for people. The reason is difficult to install these devices. Even if these devices are installed, an effect may not be shown. For these reason, easy to install and effective device is needed. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of the furniture fall prevention device by using damper. To examine the effectiveness, it is necessary to know behavior furniture during earthquakes. Therefore, furniture was modeled to expect behavior during earthquakes. This model was excluded the effect of sliding and vertical movement. We analyzed an earthquake response by using this model. In this paper, we conducted vibration experiment, and experiment results were compared with analysis result. We input sine wave in the experiment. The analysis agreed very well with the experiments. As a result, this model can simulate behavior of the furniture.