Performance-based earthquake engineering aims to quantify performance of facilities using metrics that are of immediate use to both engineers and stakeholders. A rigorous yet practical implementation of a performance-based earthquake engineering methodology is developed and demonstrated for an idealized building. The methodology considers seismic hazard, structural response, resulting damage, and repair costs associated with restoring the building to its original condition, using a fully consistent, probabilistic analysis of the associated parts of the problem. The methodology can be generalized to consider other performance measures such as casualties and down time, though these have not been pursued. The proposed procedure is consistent with common building design, construction, and analysis practices such that it can be readily adopted in earthquake engineering practice today.

A performance-based seismic design method enables designers to evaluate a graduated suite of performance levels for a structure in a given hazard environment. The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center is developing a framework for performance-based seismic design. One component of this framework is a probabilistic seismic demand model for a class of structures in an urban region with a well-defined seismic hazard exposure. A probabilistic seismic demand model relates ground motion intensity measures to structural demand measures. It is formulated by statistically analyzing the results of a suite of nonlinear time-history analyses of typical structures under expected earthquakes in the urban region. An example of a probabilistic seismic demand model for typical highway bridges in California is presented. It was formulated using a portfolio of 80 recorded ground motions and a portfolio of 108 bridges generated by varying bridge design parameters. The sensitivity of the demand models to variation of bridge design parameters is also discussed. Trends derived from this sensitivity study provide designers with a unique tool to assess the effect of seismicity and design parameters on bridge performance.

Energy systems are regularly subject to major disruptions affecting economic activities, operation of infrastructure and the society as a whole. Resilience assessment comprises the pre-event oriented classical risk assessment as a central element, but it goes beyond that because it also includes and evaluates post-event strategies to improve the functioning of the system during its future operation. First, an overview of resilience definitions used across various scientific disciplines is presented, followed by an in-depth analysis of resilience assessment and quantification for energy systems. The relevant literature is classified by approach and according to four key functions of resilience: resist, restabilize, rebuild, and reconfigure. Findings show that irrespective of the research field, a resilient system always operates with an aim to minimize the potential consequences resulting from a disruptive event and to efficiently recover from a potential system performance loss.

A new performance‐based plastic design procedure for steel moment frames is presented in this paper. The role of plastic analysis in seismic design of structures is illustrated. The ultimate design base shear for plastic analysis is derived by using the input energy from the design pseudo‐velocity spectrum, a pre‐selected yield mechanism, and an ultimate target drift. The proposed design procedure eliminates the need for a drift check after the structure is designed for strength as is done in the current design practice. Also, there is no need for response modification factors since the load deformation characteristics of the structure, including ductility and post‐yield behavior, are explicitly used in calculating the design forces. The results of nonlinear static and nonlinear dynamic analyses of an example steel moment frame designed by the proposed method are presented and discussed. The implications of the new design procedure for future generation of seismic design codes are also discussed.