Performance-based design in earthquake engineering

The design objectives in current building codes address life safety, control damage in minor and moderate earthquakes, and prevent collapse in a major earthquake. However, the actual reliability of the design in achieving the objectives is not known. There is a general agreement among researchers and professionals that future seismic design needs to be based on achieving stated multiple performance objectives. Future seismic design practice will be based on explicit performance criteria that can be quantified, considering multiple performance and hazard levels. There are several challenges to be addressed before procedures for performance based design can be widely accepted. The development in performance based design in seismic engineering will be directed towards the definition of performance objectives, a general design methodology, issues of ground motion modeling, and demand and capacity evaluation.