In the last ten to fifteen years a vast amount of research has been undertaken to improve on earlier methods for analysing the seismic reliability of structures. These efforts focused on identifying aspects of prominent relevance and disregarding the inessential ones, with the goal of producing methods that are both more efficient and easier to use in practice. Today this goal can be said to be substantially achieved. During these years scientific activity covered all of the many aspects involved in such a multi-disciplinary problem, ranging from seismology, to geotechnics, to structural analysis and economy, all of them to be consistently organised into a probabilistic framework. As the output of this research was dispersed into a multitude of technical papers, fib Commission 7 thought it worthwhile to select the essential aspects of this large body of knowledge and to present them into a coherent and accessible document for structural engineers. To this end a task group of specialists was formed, whose qualifications come from their personal involvement in the above-mentioned developments throughout this period of time. From its inception the group decided that the bulletin should have had a distinct educational character and provide a clear overview of the methods available. The outcome is a compact volume that starts by introducing the concepts and definitions of performance-based engineering, continues with two chapters on assessment and design, respectively, presenting the methods in detail accompanied by illustrative examples, and concludes with an appendix with sample programming excerpts for their implementation. It is believed that at present fib Bulletin 68 represents a unique compendium on probabilistic performance-based seismic design.

This book provides a new design and evaluation framework based on slope Stochastic Dynamics theory to probabilistic seismic performance for slope engineering. For the seismic dynamic stability safety of slope, it shifts from deterministic seismic dynamic analysis to quantitative analysis based on nonlinear stochastic dynamics, that is, from qualitative to the description of stochasticity of earthquake excitation that meet the needs in related design specification and establish a performance standard. In the nonlinear dynamic time history analysis of slope subjected to seismic ground motion, the term “randomness” is used to express the uncertainty in the intensity and frequency of earthquake excitation for slope engineering dynamic seismic performance. It mainly includes seismic design fortification standard, corresponding ground motion excitation, performance index threshold, and slope deterministic nonlinear seismic dynamic response. Even more than that, the seismic dynamic large deformation approaches of the whole process and comprehensive analysis for flow analysis after slope instability failure. Eventually, the probabilistic seismic dynamic performance of the slope engineering will be characterized by nonlinear dynamic reliability.

"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 440, Performance-Based Seismic Bridge Design (PBSD) summarizes the current state of knowledge and practice for PBSD. PBSD is the process that links decision making for facility design with seismic input, facility response, and potential facility damage. The goal of PBSD is to provide decision makers and stakeholders with data that will enable them to allocate resources for construction based on levels of desired seismic performance"--Publisher's description.

Seismic design of structures is fast turning to performance-based design (PBD) from old codal force-based design (FBD) method. The aim of the book is to expose readers to the meaning and need of PBD, the evolution of PBD to date, its various forms and applications. Various design philosophies and procedures have been described including modelling aspects and hazard considerations backed by examples. Direct displacement-based design (DDBD) and Unified PBD (UPBD) of reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings, RC dual systems, steel frame buildings and bridge piers have also been explained. The main features of this book are as follows: • Illustrates performance-based seismic design to achieve the design target by performance objective-oriented design procedure. • Covers modern design philosophies, modelling aspects, concepts in nonlinearities and use of supplemental damping devices. • Contains a chapter on seismic safety of nonstructural components. • Describes UPBD design procedure and examples of different structural systems. • Includes application and examples with reference to SAP2000 software. This book is aimed at graduate students, researchers and professionals in civil engineering, earthquake engineering and structural design.

The book, after two introductory chapters on seismic design principles and structural seismic analysis methods, proceeds with the detailed description of seismic design methods for steel building structures. These methods include all the well-known methods, like force-based or displacement-based methods, plus some other methods developed by the present authors or other authors that have reached a level of maturity and are applicable to a large class of steel building structures. For every method, detailed practical examples and supporting references are provided in order to illustrate the methods and demonstrate their merits. As a unique feature, the present book describes not just one, as it is the case with existing books on seismic design of steel structures, but various seismic design methods including application examples worked in detail. The book is a valuable source of information, not only for MS and PhD students, but also for researchers and practicing engineers engaged with the design of steel building structures.

Performance-based Earthquake Engineering has emerged before the turn of the century as the most important development in the field of Earthquake Engineering during the last three decades. It has since then started penetrating codes and standards on seismic assessment and retrofitting and making headway towards seismic design standards for new structures as well. The US have been a leader in Performance-based Earthquake Engineering, but also Europe is a major contributor. Two Workshops on Performance-based Earthquake Engineering, held in Bled (Slovenia) in 1997 and 2004 are considered as milestones. The ACES Workshop in Corfu (Greece) of July 2009 builds on them, attracting as contributors world-leaders in Performance-based Earthquake Engineering from North America, Europe and the Pacific rim (Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, China). It covers the entire scope of Performance-based Earthquake Engineering: Ground motions for performance-based earthquake engineering; Methodologies for Performance-based seismic design and retrofitting; Implementation of Performance-based seismic design and retrofitting; and Advanced seismic testing for performance-based earthquake engineering. Audience: This volume will be of interest to scientists and advanced practitioners in structural earthquake engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering, engineering seismology, and experimental dynamics.

This book provides a discussion of the general impact of WTO membership on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and addresses the political and economic impact on cross-Strait relations of common membership. The book begins with an introduction which analyzes the state of cross-Strait economic and political relations on the eve of dual accession to the WTO and briefly introduces the chapters which follow. The first chapter discusses the concessions made by both sides in their accession agreements and is followed by two chapters which describe the manner in which the Taiwan economy was reformed to achieve compliance as well as the specific, restrictive trade regime that was put into place to manage mainland trade. The next two chapters deal with the implications of that restrictive trade regime for the Taiwan economy in Asia and with the nature of the interactions between the two sides within the WTO. The final four chapters of the volume examine the impact of membership on four sectors of the economy: finance; agriculture; electronics and automobiles. There is a post-script which briefly covers developments since the chapters were completed.

Presenting a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the field of seismic resistant steel structures, this volume reports upon the latest progress in theoretical and experimental research into the area, and groups findings in the following key sections: · performance-based design of structures · structural integrity under exceptional loading · material and member behaviour · connections · global behaviour · moment resisting frames · passive and active control · strengthening and repairing · codification · design and application

"This book contains contributions that cover a wide spectrum of very important real-world engineering problems, and explores the implementation of neural networks for the representation of structural responses in earthquake engineering. It assesses the efficiency of seismic design procedures and describes the latest findings in intelligent optimal control systems and their applications in structural engineering"--Provided by publisher.

This book is a collection of invited lectures including the 5th Nicholas Ambraseys distinguished lecture, four keynote lectures and twenty-two thematic lectures presented at the 16th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2018. The lectures are put into chapters written by the most prominent internationally recognized academics, scientists, engineers and researchers in Europe. They address a comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art and cutting-edge topics in earthquake engineering, engineering seismology and seismic risk assessment and management. The book is of interest to civil engineers, engineering seismologists, seismic risk managers, policymakers and consulting companies covering a wide spectrum of fields from geotechnical and structural earthquake engineering, to engineering seismology and seismic risk assessment and management. Scientists, professional engineers, researchers, civil protection policymakers and students interested in the seismic design of civil engineering structures and infrastructures, hazard and risk assessment, seismic mitigation policies and strategies, will find in this book not only the most recent advances in the state-of-the-art, but also new ideas on future earthquake engineering and resilient design of structures. Chapter 1 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.