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From performance-based earthquake engineering to urban resilience

Over the past two decades, performance-based earthquake engineering has developed from a lofty concept to practical reality that is being applied in engineering practice for the evaluation and retrofit of existing buildings and the design of new buildings. Enabled by advanced nonlinear dynamic analyses, the performance-based methods provide for more transparent design and decision making that takes advantage of the latest research developments in characterizing earthquake ground motion hazards, evaluating structural behaviour, and assessing earthquake damage and its consequences. Methodologies and models have been developed to quantitatively evaluate building performance in terms of collapse safety, risk of damage and direct economic losses, and to a lesser extent repair times and downtime. Performance-based approaches are facilitating the design and construction of innovative systems, including ones that employ response modification devices, self-centering behaviour, and other technologies, that would not otherwise be possible using prescriptive building-code provisions for seismic design. However, major challenges remain to evaluate recovery from earthquake damage and implications on the socio-economic functions of society. This talk will examine the major developments in performance-based earthquake engineering and opportunities to apply it to reduce risks from earthquakes and to inform and incentivize steps to improve resilience to earthquakes.

Author(s):

Gregory Deierlein    
Stanford University
United States