Performance-based Design Principles Research Articles

A performance-based damage estimation framework for the building envelope of wind-excited engineered structures

The performance assessment of wind-excited multi-story building systems is undergoing a period of rapid change with a number of performance assessment frameworks being proposed that are based on the principles of performance-based design. Having said this, there is still a significant lack of computational frameworks that can holistically treat the building envelope of this class of building systems. Indeed, the majority of research in this direction has focused on estimating damages and losses due to excessive structural response, notwithstanding the important role played by other damage mechanisms, such as those driven by excessive dynamic pressures. This paper introduces a computational framework that can holistically treat multiple damage mechanisms during the performance assessment of building envelopes of wind-excited engineered systems. In particular, interdependent envelope damage states driven by dynamic internal/external wind pressures and structural responses are modeled through multiple dependent fragility functions. Consequences are modeled in terms of the envelope components’ final damage states as well as the ingress of wind driven rain. By setting the framework in a simulation environment, probabilistic estimates of the performance metrics are provided as output. A full scale application is presented illustrating the proposed framework.

Fire safety engineering in timber buildings

The combustibility of timber is one of the main reasons that many building regulations strictly limit the use of timber as a building material. Fire safety is an important contribution to feeling safe, and an important criterion for the choice of building materials. Historically, the combustibility aspect of wood has been a disadvantage for using timber as a construction material. The main precondition for an increased use of timber in buildings is providing adequate fire safety. This paper reviews the opportunities and challenges to reach this goal by implementing Fire Safety Engineering and Performance Based Design principles.

Soil-pile interaction effects in wharf structures under lateral loads

Wharfs are essential to shipping and support very large gravity loads on both a short-term and long-term basis which cause quite large seismic internal forces. Therefore, these structures are vulnerable to seismic activities. As they are supported on vertical and/or batter piles, soil-pile interaction effects under earthquake events have a great importance in seismic resistance which is not yet fully understood. Seismic design codes have become more stringent and suggest the use of new design methods, such as Performance Based Design principles. According to Turkish Code for Coastal and Port Structures (TCCS 2008), the interaction between soil and pile should somehow be considered in the nonlinear analysis in an accurate manner. This study aims to explore the lateral load carrying capacity of recently designed wharf structures considering soil-pile interaction effects for different soil conditions. For this purpose, nonlinear structure analysis according to TCCS (2008) has been performed comparing simplified and detailed modeling results.

Uniform hazard spectra in western Balkan Peninsula

Earthquake design codes, which are based on the performance-based design principles, aim to satisfy both the operational continuity and safety requirements for the designed structures. This calls for the design for at least two very different levels of strong earthquake shaking, and thus requires the amplitudes and the shapes of the elastic acceleration spectra to vary with geographic coordinates, and with the probabilities of exceedance. The traditional code procedures, which scale the design spectra in terms of peak ground acceleration and fixed shape spectra cannot meet these objectives. In this paper we show how the performance based design principles can be satisfied if the Uniform Hazard Spectral (UHS) method is used for scaling the design spectra. We illustrate this method for seismic zoning of the northwestern segment of the Bosnia and Herzegovina area, centered at Banja Luka in the Republic of Srpska. The method we present in this paper can be implemented in essentially all seismic regions of the world.

Performance-Based Design of Deep Foundation Systems in Load and Resistance Factor Design Framework

Performance-based design methods are increasingly being used for the design and analysis of structures. For performance-based design of deep foundation systems, limiting tolerable movements are one of the design criteria that can be used in lieu of the usual ultimate load capacity. The limiting tolerable movement is often selected to correspond to a movement that will cause damage to a structure but will not produce a collapsible failure of the structure. Performance-based design principles can be extended to include the axial design of deep foundation systems under strength and service loading conditions. In this extended approach, limiting tolerable settlements can be selected to correspond to a movement that will either cause excessive stresses in the structure or render a structure functionally inoperable because of serviceability limits. A performance-based design approach for axial design of deep foundations under the strength and serviceability limit states was developed. The design approach is integrated with the load and resistance factor design framework to develop an efficient and consistent methodology for satisfying both limit state criteria.