PROJECT OVERVIEW

Title: Development of Next Generation Performance-Based Seismic Design Procedures for New and Existing Buildings

Client: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Status: Ongoing phase commenced September 2006. Previous phase (ATC-58 Project) commenced 2001 and completed in 2007.

Participants: To see a list of project participants, click here. In addition, a Solicitation of Participants will remain active throughout the duration of the project.

Interim Products:

• ATC-58 50% Draft Guidelines for Seismic Performance Assessment of Buildings
• FEMA 445 Report, Next-Generation Performance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines (file is ~8.7 Mb)
• FEMA 461 Report, Interim Testing Protocols for Determining the Seismic Performance Characteristics of Structural and Nonstructural Components (file is ~ 7Mb)
• ATC-58-1 Report, Proceedings of FEMA-Sponsored Workshop on Communicating Earthquake Risk, which was held on June 18, 2002 in Chicago, Illinois (file is ~69 Mb)
• ATC 58-2 Report, Preliminary Evaluation of Methods for Defining Performance.
• Task Reports summarizing interim results from various project-related work efforts.
• Technical Papers relating to the project that were presented at recent seminars and conferences
• Proceedings: Mini-Workshop/Invited Meeting on the Identification of Nonstructural Components of Significance (file is ~3.5Mb)
  

Related Projects and Reports: The George E. Brown, Jr., Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) research program of the National Science Foundation funds the Grand Challenge project studying the seismic performance of ceiling-piping-partition nonstructural systems.

PROJECT SUMMARY

The Applied Technology Council (ATC) is under contract to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to perform a project to develop Next Generation Performance-based Seismic Design Guidelines.  The purpose of the project is to develop a series of resource documents that define procedures that can be used to reliably and economically design new buildings or upgrade existing buildings to attain desired performance goals, and to assist stakeholders in selecting appropriate design performance goals for individual buildings.  The project includes the establishment of a methodology for predicting the earthquake performance of buildings characterized in terms of probable life loss, repair costs and time out of service resulting from earthquake effects, expressed in a variety of formats useful to different stakeholders and decision makers.  The ultimate goals of performance-based design are the development of practical design criteria that give the building owner and regulator the ability to select a building's desired performance capability as well as to optimize the performance of code-designed buildings, relative to society’s needs.  While the project is funded under seismic programs, the intent is that the technologies developed in this program will be directly relevant and applicable to other extreme events, such as blast, fire and tornadic winds.
Work on Phase 1 of the project, which commenced in October 2001, focused on a review and updating of the program plan presented in the FEMA-349 Action Plan for Performance Based Seismic Design, which defines the work necessary to develop 5 groups of products:  Structural Performance Products, Nonstructural Performance Products, Risk Management Products, Design Guidelines and Stakeholders Guidelines.  The principal output of the Phase 1 effort was a revised program plan, published in August 2006 as FEMA 445, Next-Generation Performance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines, Program Plan for New and Existing Buildings.  

In 2003, the project team commenced Phase 2, which focused on the initial development of Guidelines for Seismic Performance Assessment of Buildings (Performance Assessment Guidelines), which will provide a framework for identifying the probable consequences, in terms of human losses (deaths and serious injuries), direct economic losses (building repair or replacement costs) and indirect losses (time of lost beneficial use of the building for its intended purpose), resulting from building response to ground shaking.  Work on Phase 2 was completed in June 2007, with the preparation of the 35% complete draft of the Performance Assessment Guidelines, and a companion electronic Performance Assessment Calculation Tool (PACT).  The PACT Beta version 1.0 software, patch, and user guide are available for download.

Work on Phase 3, under which the Performance Assessment Guidelines will be completed, commenced in October 2006.  In April 2009, 50% draft of the Performance Assessment Guidelines was released for public review.  This document is available for download here. In this Phase, a second version of the Performance Assessment Calculation Tool (PACT) is also being prepared. PACT 2.0 is not yet available for public review. The two figures below depict the first two screens of PACT 2.0 alpha.