Report - PEER - University of California, Berkeley

THE ATC-58 PROJECT PLAN FOR NONSTRUCTURAL COMPONENTSRobert E. BACHMAN 1ABSTRACTThe Applied Technology Council (ATC) with sponsorship from the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency has initiated a project to develop next-generation performance-basedseismic design guidelines that will apply to both new and existing buildings (the ATC-58project). The project includes a significant focus on non-structural components in recognitionof the major economic losses associated with damage of non-structural components observed inrecent earthquakes. In this paper, the plan for development of guidelines for the nonstructuralcomponents portion of the project is presented. The planned guidelines will cover the processof designing, testing, verifying and installing nonstructural components and will provideguidance on how one would go about assessing the probable life loss, repair costs anddowntime associated with various design alternatives, as well as the associated indirecteconomic impacts. When implemented the plan will provide tools that will allow these losses tobe reduced in the future in a practical and reliable way. The effort involved in compilingprobabilistically based performance data and acceptance criteria for the many structural andnonstructural systems that comprise the building inventory is an immense task which is beyondthe funding ability of any single private or public agency. Therefore, it is anticipated that muchwork associated with developing this performance data and acceptance criteria will beperformed outside the project and will continue on for many years.Keywords: Design criteria; Performance-based engineering; Nonstructural components.1. INTRODUCTIONThe Applied Technology Council with sponsorship of the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency (FEMA) has commenced on a project to develop nextgenerationperformance-based seismic design guidelines (The ATC-58 Project). Theguidelines are to be applicable to the design of new buildings as well as to theupgrade of existing buildings. The guidelines are to address both the design ofbuilding structural systems and the nonstructural components housed within thebuildings. There is a significant project focus on nonstructural components inrecognition of the major economic losses associated with damage of nonstructuralcomponents observed in recent earthquakes. The guidelines will be probabilistically1 Principal, Robert E. Bachman, Consulting Structural Engineer, Sacramento, California, USA125