PERFORMANCE-BASED SEISMIC DESIGN PROVISIONS NEWLY INTRODUCED TO THE BUILDING STANDARD LAW OF JAPAN

The seismic design provisions of buildings in Japan was revised toward a performance-based structural engineering framework in 2000. The provisions provide two performance objectives: life safety and damage limitation of a building at two corresponding levels of earthquake motions. The design earthquake motions are defined in terms of the acceleration response spectra specified at the engineering bedrock to take account of the soil conditions and soil-structure interaction effects as properly as possible. The seismic performance shall be verified by comparing the predicted response values with the estimated limit values of a building.