APPLICATION OF A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH FOR THE PERFORMANCE-BASED EARTHQUAKE-RESISTANT DESIGN OF BUILDINGS

After a brief introduction about the importance and definition of Performance-based Seismic Engineering (P-B SE), this paper addressed the following main objectives: (1) To review what are the main features that an Earthquake Resistant Design Approach (EQ-RD) should have to satisfy P-B SE should have; (2) To show why a comprehensive-based design is considered the most suitable approach for P-B SE; (3) To present a proposed comprehensive approach for design of buildings and discuss briefly the application of this approach to the design of two reinforced concrete buildings, one of 30 stories and another of 10 stories.