Report - PEER - University of California, Berkeley

PREFACEThe workshop on “Seismic Design Methodologies for the Next Generation of Codes,”held in Bled, Slovenia, in 1997, initiated considerable progress worldwide to establishbasic concepts and methods for performance-based earthquake engineering. Anincreasing acceptance of PBEE concepts by practicing engineers, together withextensive research, has led to implementation in the design and upgrade of buildings,bridges, and other man-made structures.Encouraged by the success of the 1997 workshop, we decided to organize aninternational forum aimed at continuing dialog on the implementation worldwide ofnew ideas. The International Workshop on Performance-Based Seismic Design —Concepts and Implementation, was held in Bled, June 28 – July 1, 2004.Much of the past research in performance-based earthquake engineering hasfocused on rigorous approaches to performance assessment and on metrics forcommunicating performance (in probabilistic terms) to stakeholders. In the designprocess (design of new structures and upgrading of existing ones), the challenge is tocreate a system that will deliver desired performance in a cost-effective way. Theobjective of the international workshop was to assess the states of knowledge andpractice related to this challenge so that progress in research and implementation inengineering practice can be accelerated, with a common foundation established onwhich to base the various approaches advocated in different countries.At the workshop, 45 invited participants and 12 observers from 14 countriesaddressed the following topics: loss estimation, fragility and vulnerability, and impacton risk management; implementation in engineering practice; performance-baseddesign concepts; and integration of experimental and analytical simulations.Forty-three papers, which were submitted before the workshop and posted on theworkshop website, were presented during the first two days of the workshop. The lasttwo days were devoted to discussions organized in the form of working groupsessions, and a final plenary session. The workshop provided a valuable forum for theexchange of research results and ideas on issues important for advancement ofperformance-based earthquake engineering methodologies.These proceedings contain the workshop resolutions, conclusions, andrecommendations, as well as a compendium of the invited papers. The proceedingsare intended to assess the state of the art and state of the practice in performancebasedseismic design, to define future directions for the development of performancebasedearthquake engineering, and to identify important research needs.We are deeply indebted to the authors who accepted the invitation to attend theworkshop, wrote original and thoughtful papers, presented them at the workshop,chaired the sessions, and participated in the lively discussions. The invaluable help ofthe advisory committee consisting of Professors Jack P. Moehle (chair), Gregory G.vii