Performance-Based Seismic Design of Wood Frame Buildings Using a Probabilistic System Identification Concept

Abstract

Performance-based seismic design (PBSD) of wood frame structures has been only preliminarily investigated by a handful of researchers around the world and is currently under development in the United States as well as other countries worldwide. This paper presents the basic concept of applying system identification logic as one alternative for PBSD of wood frame structures. In PBSD of wood frame structures, one prescribes combinations of hazard level and corresponding performance, and “designs” the system such that these performance metrics are met. For wood frame buildings this procedure fits the definition of a system identification problem, i.e., the input and output are known and the nonlinear system between them is sought. In most cases the shearwall locations, i.e., geometry, are known, and only the wall design is sought. In this paper, the concept is presented and a procedure to apply it within a PBSD framework is proposed. The validity of the procedure is confirmed through two illustrative example...