Experimental evidence of seismic performance of base isolated artistic assets

The seismic protection of artistic assets is a fundamental risk mitigation strategy for many countries worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean regions. This work illustrates experimental results of a recent European research project aimed to investigate the seismic response of museum contents and develop risk mitigation strategies to improve their resilience. Such project consists of comprehensive experimental shaketable tests conducted on the large-scale Azalee facility at CEA, Saclay in France. Full-scale free-standing marble statues and busts were assessed seismically by considering various scenarios, i.e. different types of pedestals, with and without innovative isolation devices at their base. The present paper evaluates the efficiency of seismic isolation on the rocking behaviour of artefacts. Response of busts and statues mounted on a seismically isolated steel plate supported on three pendulum isolators is compared to the behaviour of non-isolated counterparts. Strong ground motions with different seismological characteristics are employed to evaluate the effect of frequency contents on the dynamic response of the sample artistic components.