Active Base Isolation of Museum Artifacts under Seismic Excitation

This article investigates the possibility of using active control devices for the seismic protection of museum artifacts subjected to sliding and rocking. An actively base isolated system is compared to a passively base isolated one constituted by a spring-dashpot system that can represent a simplified modeling of both a base isolator or a flexible case-supporting system. Results show that active base isolation has superior performance than the passive one for the seismic protection of museum’s artifacts. Moreover, due to their adaptability and robustness, active control devices can be adopted for different works of art in different site exposure conditions.