Areas of Activity

The objectives of the design methods section are to improve existing seismic design practice and develop improved methods for seismic design and assessment. An important long-term goal of the group is to enable the realisation of performance-based design, a framework for seismic design in which engineers will be able to effectively control the seismic risk of a building or other structural form (eg. a bridge, communication tower, damn, etc.). The PBD approach requires (i) quantification of seismic hazard at a site, (ii) a means of controlling the response of a structure under a given level of seismic intensity, (iii) relationships between response and damage to both structural and non-structural elements, and (iv) information on the cost implications of design and construction choices for both construction, maintenance, and repair (including indirect costs of repair associated with downtime). In addition, given the uncertainty in the design process, probabilistic approaches are required. Whilst the probabilistic definition of seismic hazard is clearly an important ingredient for PBD, it is the objective of other research initiatives such as the GEM project (www.globalquakemodel.org). As such, the focus in the first few years will be to improve our means of controlling the response of structures by further developing displacement-based design (DBD) methods for different structural typologies. This objective must be addressed from both a theoretical and practical standpoint, and consequently one of the first projects in the Design Methods section is to develop a computer program for the DBD of RC building structures.

Main Areas of Collaboration/Projects/Activities

• Development of a Model Code for the Displacement-Based Seismic Design of Structures;
• Development of a program for the application of Direct Displacement-Based Seismic Design;