NEHRP Clearinghouse
- Title
- Methodology and Initial Damage Statistics. Optimum Seismic Protection and Building Damage Statistics, Report Number 1.
- File
- PB293248.pdf
- Author(s)
- Whitman, R. V.; Cornell, C. A.; Vanmarcke, E. H.; Reed, J. W.
- Source
- National Science Foundation, Washington, DC. Applied Science and Research Applications., March 1972, 31 p.
- Identifying Number(s)
- ['STRUCTURES PUB-339', 'R72-17']
- Abstract
- The methodology is presented for analyzing the costs and risks associated with designing tall buildings against earthquakes. The current status of studies concerning actual damage during the San Fernando earthquake and other earthquakes are discussed as well as some of the studies being made as part of the application of the methodology to tall buildings in Boston. The methodology is aimed at selecting seismic design requirements for a specific project or for use in a building code. However, the same general methodology can be used as a basis for insurance considerations or for federal disaster relief laws. The heart of the methodology is examination, in probabilistic terms, of the damage which one earthquake will cause to a particular building system built with a particular design strategy. This evaluation is repeated for different levels of earthquake, different design strategies, and different building systems. For each different design strategy, the initial cost required by that strategy is added to the present value of possible future losses.
- Keywords
- Seismic design; Earthquake resistant structures; Tall buildings; Damage assessment; Probability; Massachusetts; Seismic risk; Dynamic response; Buildings; Earthquake engineering; Boston (Massachusetts); Soil dynamics