Direct measurement of inter-story drift displacements of scale model building in shake table tests

The authors' research group has recently invented a non-contact type of sensing device of directly measuring the inter-story drift displacements for building structures. That sensor obtains the time histories of two dimensional drift displacements during a seismic event. This kind of sensor had been a long-wanted device but was not available until the recent development of these sensors. Utilizing an opportunity of participating in the shake table test experiments of a scale building model at E-defense, the authors' group installed these developed sensors into that model building. Reporting those drift displacement results which the sensors measured from non-severe to severe seismic excitations, this paper demonstrates that the sensors could provide the structural engineers with useful and significant data for damage assessment at the primary stage in particular.