Case Studies of the Confidence-based Seismic Performance Evaluation Procedure

Case Studies of the Confidence-based Seismic Performance Evaluation Procedure

Following the Northridge earthquake, the FEMA/SAC Steel Project extended the application of reliability methods to assess the seismic performance of steel moment-resisting frame buildings. In this case, the deformation demands on a system were compared to estimates of the capacity of the system against seismically-induced displacements, globally and locally, in order to estimate the ability of the structure to prevent collapse(or achieve other performance goals, such as continued occupancy) for a stipulated seismic hazard level(FEMA, 2000). In this research, the reliability framework as used to assess Special Moment Resisting Frame(SMRF) structures during the FEMA/SAC Steel Project was employed to assess the confidence criteria used with different ground motion scaling methods.