ATC 63 Methodology for Evaluating Seismic Collapse Safety of Archetype Buildings

This is one of four companion papers describing the Applied Technology Council project (ATC-63) to develop a methodology to assess seismic design provisions for building systems. This paper describes the underlying approach to evaluate the collapse safety of a set of archetype buildings, whose designs reflect the key features of the seismic design requirements. The companion papers provide a broader overview of the ATC 63 project and two application studies to reinforced concrete moment frames and wood-frame buildings. Following an overview of the assessment methodology, this paper reviews specific aspects related to (a) modeling collapse assessment of buildings by nonlinear time-history analysis, (b) development of collapse fragility curves, including variability due to design, construction, and modeling uncertainties, (c) ground motion characteristics with adjustment for spectral shape effects for collapse assessment, (d) evaluation and acceptance criteria for archetype building models.