Performance-Based Seismic Design and Evaluation of Building Structures

Abstract

Performance-based design (PBD) has emerged as the new model for seismic engineering. The concept if PBD is not limited to the field of seismic design however, the focus of this chapter is on the recent development in earthquake engineering. Performance-based seismic engineering (PBSE) is still evolving and the information presented in this chapter is not an extending design specification but rather, an introduction to the emerging concept of seismic design of building systems. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of existing procedures that attempt to incorporate performance-based concepts in seismic design of new structures or evaluation of existing structures. The chapter will discuss several potential approaches to accomplishing the goals of PBD and present an illustrative example that plied each conceptual framework in the evaluation of a hypothetical design to offer a basis for comparing the relative merits and potential drawbacks of each approach. The main emphasis of this chapter is placed on buildings since they constitute the largest stock of structures in the built environment