Suspended ceilings are among the most widely used nonstructural components. Past earthquakes have demonstrated the susceptibility of suspended ceilings to failure during seismic events. To address this vulner- ability, design codes have incorporated specific design and installation criteria for suspended ceilings. However, ceiling and grid manufacturers continue to innovate and introduce new products that are requested by engineers and architects but are not addressed in the code. Therefore, it is necessary to have the means to evaluate such prod- ucts. Because these units are difficult to analyze numerically, earthquake simulation testing can be used to assess the seismic performance of suspended ceilings. Such technique was used by one of the major manufacturers in the United States to characterize the performance of a standard code-prescribed ceiling and to use that performance as a benchmark for assessing the response of this manufacturer’s alternate installation. Testing and evaluation of data showed that the code-prescribed installation had an acceptable performance. It was also noted that the ceil- ing constructed with the proposed alternate installation performed as well as or better than the specimen installed using the code procedure. Finally, the test data revealed some of the shortcomings of the current experimental and evaluation methodology that require revisions.
