Performance-based design in earthquake engineering: state of development

The design objectives in current building codes address life safety, contro l damage in minor and moderate earthquakes, and prevent collapse in a major earthquake. However, the actual reliability of the design in achieving the objectives is not known. There is a general agreement among researchers an d professionals that future seismic design needs to be based on achieving s tated multiple performance objectives. Future seismic design practice will be based on explicit performance criteria that can be quantified, consideri ng multiple performance and hazard levels. There are several challenges to be addressed before procedures for performa nce-based design can be widely accepted. The development in performance-bas ed design in seismic engineering will be directed towards the definition of performance objectives, a general design methodology, issues of ground mot ion modeling, and demand and capacity evaluations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.