Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-023-01217-4

REVIEW PAPER

An Overview of Performance‑Based Seismic Design Framework

for Reinforced Concrete Frame Buildings
Pravin Kumar Venkat Rao Padalu1 · Mitesh Surana2

Received: 18 January 2023 / Accepted: 8 August 2023

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Shiraz University 2023

Abstract
Worldover, seismic design of buildings typically follows a prescriptive approach in which designers conform to a series of
prescriptive code requirements in terms of both analysis and design procedures. Even though this prescriptive seismic design
approach is time-tested and easily understandable by structural designers. In the recent past, performance-based seismic
design has started to gain traction among structural designers. The performance-based seismic design allows designers
to set performance objectives and design buildings to meet the targeted performance criteria. Due to its flexible nature,
performance-based design has proven extremely useful for critical and lifeline buildings like hospitals and tall buildings.
With a focus placed on performance objectives, designers utilizing performance-based seismic design are proficient in
designing code exceeding buildings efficiently. Despite these cited benefits, performance-based design is still considered
an uncommon practice in structural design, particularly in the developing countries. Hence, the present study aims to pro-
vide an overview and framework to practice performance-based seismic design. This work identifies and discusses the key
differences between the prescriptive- and performance-based seismic design methods and also addresses the significance,
application and implementation of performance-based seismic design of buildings. This paper makes an original contribution
to the literature through a critical review of how the performance-based design withholds the opportunity to elevate the role
of the structural engineers to which they are informed members of the community, where the structures they create not only
perform according to design prescriptions, but also perform according to the needs of the owners, engineers, and society.

Keywords Seismic design · RC frame buildings · Seismic hazard · Performance objectives · Modelling strategies · Design
process

1 Introduction (Ghobarah 2001). The major earthquake events such as the

Earthquake primarily transfers energy to structures, which
consequently induces forces and displacements, and
the structure might suffer damage while dissipating this
imparted energy. The seismic activities in the past few dec-
ades in several countries have raised the necessity for an
elementary change in the currently practiced seismic design
* Pravin Kumar Venkat Rao Padalu
pravin.kumar@iiit.ac.in
Mitesh Surana
msurana@iitrpr.ac.in
1
Earthquake Engineering Research Centre, International
Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad,
Hyderabad 500032, Telangana, India
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute
of Technology (IIT) Ropar, Rupnagar 140001, Punjab, India
2001—Mw 7.7—Bhuj (India), 2004—M w 9.1—(Indone-
sia), 2011—Mw 9—(Japan), 2015—Mw 7.8—(Nepal), and
2023—Mw 7.8—(Turkey-Syria) have shown the world, the
destructive power of earthquakes. Even though seismic
events before 1930, the interpretation of inertial action dur-
ing an earthquake was well understood. However, the quan-
tification of exact seismic force was not possible. Moreover,
the buildings designed for lateral wind loads performed bet-
ter during seismic events that occurred in the 1920s and
early 1930s (Priestley et al. 2007). Hence, structural engi-
neers inferred that the structures in seismic regions could
be designed for some lateral force similar to wind loads.
However, to account for inertial action, the lateral force shall
be in proportion to the mass of the structure. Therefore, in
the early twentieth century, the seismic force typically 10
percentage of structural weight was used as lateral force irre-
spective of its dynamic properties. During the 1940s and

13
Vol.:(0123456789)

1950s, the importance of structure’s dynamic characteris-
tics was comprehended. As a result, the period of structural
vibration was incorporated into the design. During the early
1960s, the measurement of actual earthquakes indicated that
the seismic force in a high-intensity earthquake imparts a
much larger force than the anticipated elastic force. Con-
trarily, it was observed that during past earthquakes, some
of the structures successfully resisted large seismic forces
though designed for a much smaller force. This observa-
tion led to discovering the utility of ductility in structures to
dissipate seismic energy and provide economical design. It
was also understood that the utilization of ductility in rein-
forced concrete (RC) structures would impart significant
damage. However, designers accepted the risk due to the
rare occurrence of an earthquake. Later experimental and
empirical results (Agrawal et al. 1965; Clough 1966; Park
1968; Bertero et al. 1969) indicated that a ductile detailed
structure survives a higher level of ground shaking than the
predicted or designed level. Hence, ductility considerations
were introduced in the design during the 1960s and 1970s.
Further, the importance of the strength parameter to control
drift level and indirectly reduce damage during the expected
earthquake level was realized in the 1980s and 1990s (Priest-
ley et al. 2007).
1.1 Design Approaches
Earthquake primarily transfers energy to structures, which
consequently induces forces and displacements, and the
structure might suffer damage while dissipating this imparted
energy. Because of historical considerations, seismic design
is currently established on a force-based approach. Con-
temporary seismic design prescribed through various codes
and standards is primarily based on the force-based design
(FBD) procedure. Although the structures designed as per
the codes performed well taking the life safety viewpoint,
the measure of destruction to the engineered buildings led
to great economical losses as well as high repair costs. In
this widely accepted traditional design procedure, structures
are designed for a reduced level of elastic force. However,
damage to structural and non-structural elements during past
earthquakes steered structural engineers and researchers to
work on more rational design methods. The primary cause
of structural damage in the earthquake is relative displace-
ments. Therefore, it seems more rational to design structures
to attain a specified level of inelastic relative displacement
for pre-defined seismic hazards. Another school of thought
intends to use the imparted seismic energy directly rather
than the induced forces or displacements. Since earth-
quakes are a source of kinetic energy, the structures can be
designed to dissipate earthquake input energy. Hence, the
development in seismic design started from a force-based
approach and presently moving towards more rational
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
performance-based approaches like direct displacement-
based design—DDBD (Qi and Moehle 1991; Priestley and
Kowalsky 2000), deformation-controlled design (Panagio-
takos and Fardis 1999a), performance-based plastic design
(Liao and Goel 2012), unified approach to the performance-
based design (Choudhury and Singh 2013) and energy-based
design—EBD (Merter and Ucar 2017).
Kumbhar (2022) conducted a comparative assessment of
force, displacement and energy-based procedure and high-
lighted the advantages of DDBD and EBD over code-pre-
scribed FBD procedure. The author reported that the FBD
approach does not facilitate to choice of any performance
objective, whereas DDBD does facilitate to selection of dis-
placement or drifts as a performance objective. In the case
of FBD and EBD, the stiffness of the structure is the input
parameter; whereas in the case of DDBD, the stiffness of
the structure is the output. Further, the DDBD approach is
relatively simpler than the EBD approach. DDBD approach
uses a realistic displacement profile as compared to EBD.
Furthermore, taking into account the comprehensiveness,
rationality, and economic design, the DDBD is preferable
to EBD. These advantages of the DDBD approach make
it more suitable than FBD and EBD approaches. However,
several procedures in the DDBD are based on the same fun-
damentals, yet the parameters such as displacement profile,
equivalent damping, and damping modifiers are different.
These variations in the crucial design parameters alter the
overall design and subsequently the inelastic behaviour of
the structure. Further, the force, displacement and energy-
based approaches have very different design philosophies
and procedures. Overall, the desired performance in struc-
tures can be defined through different parameters such as
energy, displacement, failure mechanism, story drift, etc.
Table 1 shows a comparative summary highlighting the
merits and demerits of the different design approaches. The
design philosophy of the aforementioned design approaches
is entirely different from each other for the same seismic haz-
ard. Also, the non-linear seismic performance of the same
structure designed using these approaches will be different.
Further, the acceptability of any design approach depends on
various factors such as its accuracy, ease of implementation
and adaptability.
One of the greatest limitations of the current seismic
design codes is that they mainly focus on forces alone, with
buildings checked for displacement or drift. These input
forces are determined from elastic analysis and inelas-
tic energy dissipation of the structure under earthquakes
is implicitly taken into consideration by decreasing the
force demand through a ‘Response reduction factor—R’ or
‘Behaviour factor’ (IS 1893 Part-1:2016; Liu et al. 2004). At
present, after the elastic analysis, force-based procedures are
used to design the primary and secondary components of the
building. The buildings are further checked for serviceability
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

(displacements) and detailed to offer ductility using prescrip-

stronger than the displacement-based design

procedure, which is sometimes unnecessary

while estimating the design forces from the

plastic energy to be dissipated by the struc-
tive requirements. It is worthy to note here that this process

It explicitly considers inelastic behaviour,

This procedure makes columns relatively
does not explicitly consider the actual non-linear behaviour

Similar to displacement-based design

of the buildings and uncertainties in seismic response arising
out of the material properties, component limit states and
ground motion. As a result, the actual (expected) seismic

ture through inelastic action

Similar to force-based design
performance of the buildings can greatly differ from the code
expectations. Hence, for important buildings, there exists
Energy-based design

and uneconomical

a need to shift the design practice from a force-based to a

performance-based approach to get an actual response from
the buildings.
This is where the role of performance-based earthquake
engineering comes into play. This term has been around
for decades, but only recently it has been brought to the
damping considerations in the design process to
tives in terms of design drift for a given seismic

level where quantitative performance metrics direct losses,

Choice of performance objective It does not facilitate the selection of performance It facilitates the selection of performance objec-

ensure the inelastic behaviour of the structure

requires a relatively less number of iterations
scribed by Priestley et al. (2007) and ensures
a relatively strong column and weak beam in

It is the output of the design process and thus

requirements and corresponding equivalent

downtime losses, and casualties are used to define the con-

It follows the capacity design procedure pre-

It explicitly considers displacement ductility

sequences of an extreme event such as an earthquake. The

concept of performance-based design (PBD) emerged in
the 1990s as a response to the considerable structural and
non-structural damage experienced by code-designed build-
Displacement-based design

ings during seismic events. This was very evident during the
1994 Northridge (USA) and 1995 Kobe (Japan) earthquakes,
which resulted in large economic losses, both in terms of
seismic events

repair costs and downtime. Moreover, the design of critical

for design

buildings was convoluted, excessively costly to implement,

hazard

and not reliable in achieving the desired level of protec-

tion demanded by society. Departing from its origin within
earthquake engineering, PBD is the process of designing a
ductility code (e.g. IS 13920:2016) but does not

structure to have a predictable performance when subjected

the structure will behave in the desired manner
strength, ductility, redundancy and damping),
due to implicit reserve parameters (viz. over-
ensure ‘no hinge formation’ in intermediate/

It does not consider explicitly. It assumes that

to a pre-defined loading with enough confidence and reli-

It is the input of the design process and thus
It follows the capacity design procedure of

ability. As the performance levels are explicitly defined, this

upper storey columns in seismic events

can be agreed upon with the clients and interested parties

Table 1  Comparative summary of different design approaches (Kumbhar 2022)

requires more iterations for design

in qualitative terms, e.g. continuous operation, and asso-

inelastically in a seismic event

ciated quantitative performance objectives, e.g. coupling

beam rotation limits. By working from first principles and
embracing research and advances in the profession, struc-
Force-based design

tural engineers have the opportunity to bring substantial

value to the client, which more than compensates for the
increased analysis costs.
objectives

Most of the work conducted in the recent past focused on

Performance-Based Seismic Assessment (PBSA) and not
Performance-Based Seismic Design (PBSD). The greatest
challenge with rigorous PBSA methods is that they require
elaborate formulations to incorporate and propagate uncer-
tainties, many of which are even difficult to quantify, mainly
due to a lack of sufficient test/observed data. The seismic
Stiffness of structure

Inelastic behaviour
Strength hierarchy

performance of a building during an earthquake event is

highly uncertain and it is also a function of many factors
Sr. No Parameter

such as seismic source and site characteristics, the intensity

of earthquake ground motion, structural system, configura-
tion and proportion, quality of construction, reinforcement
detailing, building maintenance, etc. The effect of some of
these parameters (e.g. structural system, configuration and
1

13

proportion, and reinforcement detailing) on structural per-
formance can be evaluated and controlled by the structural
engineer at the design stage. For this purpose, different
countries have developed seismic design guidelines based on
knowledge about the severity of earthquakes and observed
structural performance in past seismic events.
2 Research Significance
After speaking with the structural designers on their under-
standing of performance-based seismic design, it has become
clear that many individuals do understand the benefits of
updating their design methods in the appropriate scenarios,
but they simply do not have a good idea of what steps to fol-
low to achieve an environment in which PBSD is achievable.
This inspired the authors to prepare a document for design-
ers and researchers that provide the complete framework of
PBSD for RC buildings. The novelty of the present study is
to prepare an overview of the literature on PBSD advocat-
ing the benefits of utilizing performance objectives in the
design of structures in such a way that the concept becomes
familiar to structural engineers, other professionals, and
stakeholders in the construction/design industry. The present
study focuses on preparing a state-of-the-art framework on
PBSD along with the methodology to evaluate the build-
ing response including (a) assessment and representation of
seismic hazard; (b) selection of performance objectives; (c)
structural non-linear modelling; (d) non-linear analysis; (e)
assessment of seismic performance; (f) acceptance criteria’s;
and (g) iterative revisions of the seismic design needed to
meet performance objectives. Each of these stages is pre-
sented and discussed in detail. The present study serves as
a roadmap to the structural engineering community look-
ing to adopt innovative design methods instead of strictly
adhering to prescriptive code requirements in scenarios that
would benefit from some refreshing creativity and innova-
tion. This article aims to highlight the significant benefits
associated with PBSD approaches and to encourage readers
to ask whether their construction project could become more
efficient or resilient (i.e. capacity to withstand, or quickly
recover after a damaging event) by going beyond conven-
tional code design. Adopting lean design principles is a first
step, but considerable savings in both cost and carbon can
be achieved, if a holistic PBSD approach is incorporated.
3 Force‑Based Design
The understanding of a building’s performance under
earthquakes has improved over time. It has been identified
that a structure can resist much stronger earthquakes than
its strength capacity, due to inelastic energy dissipation
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
experienced by the structure, under the action of reversed
cyclic loading. Based on this understanding, the traditional
seismic design methodology was developed and is often
referred to as FBD or sometimes also termed as prescrip-
tive design philosophy, which is being used throughout
the world. The design strength is used as the basic seismic
design criterion in the FBD approach. In the FBD procedure,
the seismic force on a structure is obtained from the product
of mass and spectral acceleration. The spectral acceleration
is determined from elastic response spectra using a funda-
mental period of vibration of the structure. With a commit-
ment to impart a certain level of ductility to the structure
along with some implicit reserve parameters, these forces
are then reduced with code-based reduction factors. As men-
tioned earlier, the ‘R’ factor used in the design is primarily a
function of overstrength, ductility, and redundancy, thereby
it differs depending on the material of construction, lateral
load resisting system, capacity design and detailing provi-
sions employed in the structural design. With time, it has
been recognized that the concept of the ‘R’ factor has two
major problems associated with it (Krawinkler and Miranda
2004). Firstly, it is considered to be period independent in
the national building codes and secondly, it does not permit
the explicit consideration of overstrength. Though, the first
limitation is taken care of in some of the advanced codes
which suggest to use period-dependent ‘R’ factor (NZS 1170
Part-5:2004). Finally, structures are checked for elastic drift
to control the elastic deformations. The elastic deformations
are assumed to be implicitly correlated with inelastic defor-
mations. However, this consideration is a major limitation
of the method. According to Goel et al. (2010), the limiting
elastic drift is many times prove to be a governing criteria
that decides the section sizes and strength hierarchy. There-
fore, to achieve economical design, generally iterative pro-
cedure is adopted until the strength and drift requirements
are satisfied.
The other crucial limitation associated with the FBD
method lies in the fact that throughout the design phase
of the structure, it is nowhere ensured whether the struc-
ture will be able to meet the dual intent of prescriptive
requirements which suggests ‘No Damage’ under a minor
earthquake, and ‘No Collapse’ under a major earthquake
(Priestley et al. 2007). This means that the code-compliant
building will suffer different grades of structural damage
depending on the intensity level. The FBD procedure implic-
itly accepts some level of damage to the structure but is
incapable of providing any acceptable structural and non-
structural damage limits for the design level of earthquake.
Hence, Bertero et al. (1996) mentioned that the current seis-
mic codes on earthquake-resistant design are based on a life
safety performance level with no clear quantitative definition
and satisfy only strength limits. Hence, code-based design
procedures ensure the elastic behaviour of the structure
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
directly and account for the inelastic behaviour indirectly.
Therefore, the structure designed with the FBD procedure
may undergo large inelastic deformation unacceptably. The
code-compliant elastic FBD can achieve the strength and
stiffness demand for a reduced seismic hazard, but does not
assure to meet the inelastic demands like ductility, displace-
ment, and energy dissipation in actual seismic events. The
prevalent FBD procedure doesn’t facilitate incorporating the
damage limits or performance level of the structure for a
given seismic hazard in design. It is important to note that
the FBD structures may not collapse completely or partially,
but they may be subjected to significant structural damage
and the cost of repair will be considerably high (Whitman
et al. 1975; Dowrick 1985). It is furthermore discussed that
the use of force alone as a basis for seismic design is not
sufficient enough, as there is no clear relationship between
the elastic force demand, strength, and damage (Priestley
1993, 2000, 2003).
There are several ways to characterize the building’s
behaviour. Reliability analysts have characterized behaviour
in terms of margin against specified failure (limit) states, or
probability of failure conditioned on a given seismic demand
level. Both concepts are difficult for design engineers to
visualize and nearly impossible to relate to the building
user community. Researchers have suggested the adoption
of damage indices which are dependent on the amount of
inelastic energy dissipation experienced by various build-
ing components. Most design engineers can best visualize
behaviour in terms of damage states, defined by engineering
demand parameters like irrecoverable (permanent) drift, the
extent and severity of cracking, spalling, buckling, yielding,
and fracturing of the various building components. Hence,
it is well-established that the damage can be better related
to the deformation in a structure/component rather than
forces or stress (Moehle 1996). To overcome the limitations
imposed by the FBD methodology, an alternative design
philosophy named ‘Direct Displacement-Based Design’
(DDBD) was introduced (Qi and Moehle 1991), where trans-
lational displacement of the structure, component rotation,
material strain, etc., are included in the basic seismic design
criterion. A major contribution in this regard has been made
by Priestley (2000) and his group (Priestley et al. 2007)
in developing a practical methodology for DDBD. In this
approach, the inter-storey drifts and ductility demand are
considered as governing parameters for ensuring the desired
level of seismic performance.
4 Need for Performance‑Based Design
Conventionally, the earthquake-resistant structures are
designed using the building codes following a prescriptive
approach and are intended to achieve ‘Collapse Prevention’
(CP) performance objectives (in case of a major earthquake
event), and comparatively superior performance of critical
and lifeline buildings is implicitly achieved by the use of
importance factor greater than unity. Past earthquakes dem-
onstrated that most of the structures designed using the FBD
method survived. However, many structures of post-earth-
quake importance such as hospitals, communication tow-
ers, bridges, etc., were not operational immediately after the
earthquake. Similarly, the production process in the indus-
try stops due to damage experienced by the structural and
non-structural components. As a result, the economic losses
arising due to loss of functionality and the cost associated
with the repair/retrofitting of structural elements/compo-
nents were significantly high. These facts demand the need
to enforce multi-objective seismic design criteria. Further-
more, it is important to note here that the structural as well
as non-structural damage, may not always be controlled by
a single design parameter at all performance levels (Krawin-
kler 1996). Therefore, multiple performance control criteria
should be considered in the seismic design. PBSD is a meth-
odology, wherein both multiple performance objectives (or
targeted damage levels corresponding to different levels of
earthquake shaking), as well as multiple performance con-
trol criteria, can be considered and dealt simultaneously. In
the PBSD method, target/intended performance objectives
are decided as per the needs of the stakeholders and the
structure is designed to meet all these requirements. The
PBSD methodology helps in achieving a more reliable pre-
diction of structural behaviour by a realistic estimation of the
actual strength and ductility capacity of the structural system
with the explicit consideration of the non-linear deformation
of the members and also quantifying and controlling the
damage risk to an acceptable level during the service life of
the structure (Moller et al. 2001). These specific features of
the PBSD methodology make it more suitable for its adop-
tion in structural design practice.
5 Performance‑Based Seismic Design
The performance-based seismic design is a method which
was developed over the period from past experiences of
earthquakes and provides a realistic approach by incorpo-
rating the dynamics which gives us an output similar to
time history analysis which depicts the actual results and is
used as a verification method. PBSD is a well-established
approach within the earthquake engineering community. The
benefit of applying PBSD comes from the reassurance it
provides on expected building performance, reliability, and
economic savings, and also due to the limitations of current,
conventional, prescriptive code approaches and difficulties in
keeping up with the latest research advances. Most critical
buildings within seismic areas, such as hospitals, airports,
13

emergency service buildings, buildings of high cost and
importance, and most tall buildings are designed following
PBSD principles. The trace of comprehensive design can
be traced to the earlier 1960s when the performance level
of structure (structure response to various failure stages)
is correlated with the hazard level or the return period of
earthquakes, so that the direct and indirect loss can be mini-
mized. A philosophy regarding three design objectives was
introduced in the commentary of SEAOC Blue Book in the
year 1967 for earthquake-resistant design of building other
than essential and hazardous facilities (Hamburger 2006;
Hamburger and Hooper 2011).
5.1 What is Performance in PBSD
In earthquake engineering, one can state that seismic per-
formance is an index to quantify the extent of ‘damage’
experienced by a structure under a given earthquake. This
perspective implies that the traditional design focuses on
stress- (strength) and stiffness-based limit states remain, but
is complemented by performance-based engineering, i.e.
predictions of damage. As we are interested in the quantifica-
tion of earthquake-induced damage in the structure, the natu-
ral question that comes here is how to quantify the damage.
Will it be the same parameter we use in the prescriptive seis-
mic design, or will it be something else? These questions of
quantification of damage can be answered provided we know
for what type of component; we are interested in quantifying
the damage. For example, the damage to structural compo-
nents is usually well correlated with the engineering demand
parameter such as displacements or inter-storey displace-
ments. As a result, the performance metrics of interest can
be the ‘chord rotation’ or ‘peak inter-storey drift ratio’. The
other local response quantities include ‘peak strain’ or ‘plas-
tic strain’ in the material, or the ‘chord rotation’ of the ele-
ment. The non-structural components and contents sustain
damage when the maximum acceleration response is high.
For that reason, one performance metric for non-structural
performance can be ‘peak floor acceleration’. Many times,
the consequences of damage are also employed as measures
of seismic performance, viz. ‘damage indices’, ‘repair costs’
(direct cost), ‘downtime in functionality’ (indirect cost) and
‘deaths and injuries’. Damage indices were popular in the
1980s and 1990s, while the triple-D measures (i.e. Deaths,
Dollars, and Downtime) became more popular in the pre-
sent century. Whether a structural response such as drift,
or a downstream consequence such as cost is employed, the
ultimate objective is usually to predict these indices either
deterministically (e.g. conditioned on the occurrence of a
specific level of seismic hazard) or probabilistically (e.g.
probability of exceedance in a given exposure time). Among
different parameters, since inter-storey drifts are commonly
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
used to measure performance, PBSD is often referred to as
displacement-based design (DBD) (Ghorbanie 2007).
5.2 State of Development in PBSD
Considering the limitations of FBD, the structural engineer-
ing community has started to embrace a new seismic design
approach (termed as ‘Performance-Based Seismic Design’—
PBSD) to address various performance requirements more
explicitly. PBSD is a rational approach to design structures,
in which structural engineers identify the key performance
objectives focusing on the serviceability and strength of the
structure and then design that structure to comply with the
defined objectives. This process is a complete reversal of
typical prescriptive or FBD, in which the engineer must con-
form to a series of code requirements that regulate the design
of the structural elements. By establishing explicit design
goals early on, engineers have more flexibility and opportu-
nity to add value and incorporate innovative solutions into
their designs. While the structural engineering industry does
know the many benefits associated with PBSD, its usage is
significantly marginalized compared to that of the univer-
sally practiced FBD.
The PBSD theory stemmed from DDBD which was
developed by Qi and Moehle (1991). Although, the earliest
reference to PBSD in the context of earthquake engineering
appears in the 1927 edition of the Uniform Building Code—
UBC (1927) which defines the goal to “permit structures to
withstand earthquakes without collapse or endangerment of
life safety”, which in loose interpretation defines a perfor-
mance limit for the design of structures. As a result of great
efforts, the knowledge of building performance under earth-
quakes improved in the 1970s and 1980s and the concept of
PBSD came in the 1990s. The initial efforts for PBSD were
introduced in FEMA 273 (1997) and FEMA 274 (1997) as
guidelines for the seismic rehabilitation of buildings. These
concepts were originally developed for seismic evaluation
and retrofitting of existing structures and later on extended
and used for the design of new structures with specific per-
formance objectives. With the advancements and progress
in research, the PBSD methodology gained popularity and
was updated continuously with documentation in FEMA 356
(2000), FEMA 440 (2005), FEMA 440A (2009) and ASCE
41 (2017). In the past two decades, the PBSD procedure has
undergone significant development and has adopted a proba-
bilistic framework in the last few years (FEMA P695:2009;
FEMA:P58-1 2018; FEMA:P58-2 2018; FEMA:P58-7
2018). The PBSD process in its most basic form is based
on assessing a building’s performance to evaluate its like-
lihood of experiencing various types of damage levels by
considering the earthquake ground motions that may affect
the structure in near future. Figure 1 shows the typical flow
chart of the PBSD process.
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
Identify the needs of owner,
user, and society
Selection of
performance objective
Perform preliminary
building design for target
performance objective
Assess performance
capability/crietria
Does performance No Revise design and/or
performance objectives
meet objectives?
Yes
Final design and
detailing
Fig. 1  Typical performance-based seismic design flow diagram
In 1995, for the first time, a document ‘Vision 2000’
(1995) on performance-based seismic engineering of build-
ings was published by the Structural Engineers Association
of California (SEAOC), wherein performance objectives
and expected seismic hazard levels are interrelated to each
other. Figure 2 shows the correlation between the targeted
performance level and the levels of seismic hazard. As seis-
mic intensity increases, the expected (targeted) structural
performance decreases in terms of expected damage and
consequences. Conversely, as the importance of building
increases, the expected performance level also increases.
The inception of this document allowed the designers and
owners the flexibility of choosing other performance objec-
tives and goals, rather than just the ‘Collapse Prevention’,
providing an extended framework for earthquake engineer-
ing. However, there were several limitations associated with
these guidelines. The major problem was attributed to the
extremely broad description of each performance objective
(rather than just a pass or fail criterion) that was based on a
consensual opinion obtained from the physical performance
or experimental test data (Whittaker et al. 2004). Also, the
document does not provide any analytical or numerical
method for the structural performance assessment.
In 1996, the Applied Technology Council published a
document ATC 40 (1996) on seismic evaluation and retrofit-
ting of concrete buildings, wherein the ‘Capacity Spectrum
Approach’ for estimation of performance point was intro-
duced. Very soon, after publishing ATC 40 (1996), Federal
Emergency Management Agency published two documents,
i.e. FEMA 273 (1997) and FEMA 274 (1997) as guidelines
for the seismic evaluation of existing buildings, wherein the
‘Displacement Coefficient Method’ for estimation of per-
formance point was presented. The ATC 40 (1996), FEMA
273 (1997) and FEMA 274 (1997) approaches are the same
while developing the non-linear force–deformation curve of
a building under consideration, but they differ in the way
in which the inelastic displacement demands are estimated
for any hazard level of interest. These documents present
similar approaches with a common goal to provide engi-
neers with the necessary guidelines for the rehabilitation of
existing buildings with more specific performance criteria
that accommodate the different structural and non-structural
damages. In addition to the system-level requirements of
performance, limiting values are provided in FEMA 356
(2000) for different structural configuration systems for
assessing their performance in terms of damage in struc-
tural and non-structural components, indicated by different
deformation limits. Along the same line, Eurocode (EN 1998
Part-3:2005) provided a framework for the performance
evaluation of existing buildings and designing retrofitting
strategies. Later, the Turkish earthquake code (TEC 2007)
and Dubai building code (ADIBC 2013) provided guidelines
for performance-based design. More recently, it is argued
and emphasized that the FBD methodology is based on a
uniform hazard spectrum and designing the structures for
the uniform hazard does not result in uniform risk across
the design space. This observation can be attributed to the
shape of the site-specific hazard curve and inherent uncer-
tainties associated with the estimation of seismic hazard and
structural vulnerability. Hence, the concept of risk-targeted
seismic hazard which was introduced initially in ASCE 7
(2016) and it is still continued in the new version of ASCE
7 (2022). In similar lines, FEMA P695 (2009) and FEMA
P58-1 (2018) target acceptable collapse risk (or probabil-
ity of collapse conditioned on the occurrence of a specific
hazard) as the main design criteria for PBSD. The FEMA
P58-2 (2018) provides the framework for the next-generation
PBSD approach considering collapse risk and the associated
direct and indirect losses. Further, ASCE 41 (2017) and ACI
369.1 (2017) also provided guidelines for seismic perfor-
mance assessment of existing buildings and retrofitting of
RC structures. Recently, ACI 318 (2019) provides guidelines
for non-linear modelling and acceptance criteria of structural
components of RC buildings. All these documents play a key
role in the further development of PBSD.
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 Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

Fig. 2  Co-relation between

performance levels/objectives
and seismic hazard for build-
ings: (a) relationship showing
performance levels of damage
vs different hazard levels; and
(b) relationship showing target
performance vs different earth-
quake severity(adapted from
Vision 2000:1995)

13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

With time and observations of the numerous past earth-
quakes, the importance of non-structural components was
understood. Accordingly, non-structural safety is also con-
sidered of prime importance, particularly for lifeline build-
ings (e.g. hospitals) and industrial or commercial buildings,
in which the cost of non-structural elements (e.g. architec-
tural components, mechanical equipment etc.) is very high
(sometimes up to 90% of the total building cost or even
more). It has been observed in the past, that the damage to
non-structural components is sensitive to either floor accel-
eration or inter-storey drift and hence these non-structural
elements can be classified under three main categories: (i)
acceleration-sensitive; (ii) drift-sensitive; and (iii) combined
acceleration- and drift-sensitive. Peak floor acceleration or
floor spectral acceleration becomes an important param-
eter for the non-structural components like ceilings, light
fixtures etc., which are sensitive to inertia forces; whereas
the inter-storey drift becomes an important parameter for
the components like walls, piping’s etc., which are sensitive
to displacements.
The conventional PBSD framework is based on a deter-
ministic approach, and thus the effects of various sources of
uncertainties (i.e. aleatoric and epistemic) are not accounted
in this framework. As a result, sometimes large deviations in
the estimated and actual seismic performance of the build-
ings can be expected while using a deterministic framework.
More recently the probabilistic framework of PBSD has
evolved (FEMA P58-1:2018; FEMA P58-2:2018; FEMA
P58-7:2018) which inherently captures the effects of various
sources of uncertainties, and thus, the damage levels of the
building and its content can be conveniently quantified. It is
also used to estimate the potential casualties and accompa-
nied direct and indirect losses using empirical relationships
between the extent of damage to the structural elements/non-
structural components and the corresponding consequences.
6 Specification of Seismic Hazard
The expected level of ground shaking at the site is termed a
seismic hazard. Seismic hazard at a site is defined through
a seismic hazard curve which represents the relationships
between the ground motion intensity and the correspond-
ing probability of exceedance. The seismic hazard at a site
depends on the source, site parameters of the area and the
probability of occurrence. The bigger earthquake events
have a lower probability of occurrence. The hazard levels are
represented in terms of the probability of exceedance of the
specified intensity of the ground shaking in the design life.
Traditionally, seismic design codes specify a 5% damped
elastic acceleration response spectrum (also called a uniform
hazard spectrum) for obtaining seismic hazard at any given
site of interest. With the advent and use of DDBD (which is
becoming more popular nowadays), some advanced codes
are also providing displacement response spectrum (refer
Table 2). Only Vision 2000 (1995), Browning (2001) and
Priestley et al. (2007) use displacement spectrum, among
which the first and last methods use inelastic displacement

Table 2  Summary of performance-based design methods

Criteria PBSD method FEMA SEAOC Panagiotakos Brown- Priestley Kappos and ASCE 41
273 (1999) and Fardis ing et al. Stefanidou (2017)
(1997) (1999a, b) (2001) (2007) (2010)

Performance Single × × ✓ ✓ × ✓ ×
objectives Multiple ✓ ✓ × × ✓ × ✓
Performance Drift × ✓ × ✓ ✓ ✓ ×
control Chord rotation ✓ × ✓ × × ✓ ✓
criteria
Curvature × × × × × × ×
Strain × × × × × × ×
Design Spec- Acceleration Elastic ✓ × ✓ × × ✓ ✓
trum used Inelastic × × × × × × ×
Displacement Elastic × × × ✓ × × ×
Inelastic × ✓ × × ✓ × ×
Analysis Non-linear static analysis ✓ ✓ × × ✓ × ✓
method rec- Non-linear dynamic analysis ✓ × ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
ommended
Stiffness Section Gross × ✓ × ✓ × × ×
considered Effective ✓ ✓ ✓ × ✓ ✓ ✓
in the design
Structural modelling Initial ✓ × ✓ ✓ × ✓ ×
process
Secant × ✓ × × ✓ × ✓

✓denotes the method considers criteria; and × denotes the method does not consider criteria

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 Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

response spectrum. For example, ATC 40 (1996) and Kap-
pos and Stefanidou (2010) considered three different seismic
hazard levels viz. serviceability earthquake (service level
earthquake—SE), life safety earthquake (design earth-
quake—DE), and collapse prevention earthquake (maxi-
mum expected earthquake—ME) which is defined as the
earthquakes corresponding to 50%, 10%, and 5% prob-
ability of exceedances in 50 years, respectively. The mean
return period of SE, DE, and ME corresponds to approxi-
mately 72 years, 475 years, and 975 years, respectively
(ATC 40:1996). A summary of the different seismic hazard
levels that are reported in the literature and utilized in the
PBSD methods is shown in Table 3. Typically, buildings
are designed for an earthquake that has a return period of
about 500 years (i.e. the probability of exceedance is 10% in
50 years), this reduces the design demands on buildings and
the construction costs do not increase significantly (Doshi
2019).
7 Performance Control Criterion
and Performance Levels
An important point in the evaluation of a building is the per-
formance level (also called ‘occupancy levels’) desired from
the building during a future earthquake. It is defined to iden-
tify the behaviour of the structural elements and for know-
ing their conditions from the operation level to the failure.
The sophistication of analysis is primarily governed by this
desired performance level. The performance of a building
depends not only on the structural components but also on
non-structural components. The PBSD procedure involves
defining the performance objectives in terms of performance
levels of damage in individual members of the building cor-
responding to different hazard levels (refer Fig. 2a). Depend-
ing on the target performance of the building, each of the
typical four performance levels is associated with a different
earthquake severity and a specific period (refer Fig. 2b), as

Table 3  Seismic hazard levels considered in the literature on performance-based design

Probability of Return Terminology used to define seismic hazard
exceedance period
(years) Vision ATC-40 SEAOC Calvi and Kappos and Stefa- FEMA 273 (1997),
2000 (1995) (1996) (1999) Sullivan nidou (2010) FEMA 356 (2000),
(2009) ASCE 41 (2017)

87% in 50 Years 25 – – – – –
50% in 30 Years 43 – Frequent – – –
50% in 50 Years 72 Frequent Serviceability* Occasional Level ­1II Serviceability –
Level ­2I
20% in 50 Years 225 Occasional – – Level ­1III – –
10% in 50 Years 475 Rare Design Rare Level ­1IV Life safety BSE-1
Level ­2II
Level ­3I
10% in 100 Years 949 – – Very Rare – –
5% in 50 Years 975 Very rare Maximum# – – – –
4% in 50 Years 1225 – – – Level ­2III – –
2% in 50 Years 2475 – – – Level ­2IV Collapse preven- BSE-2 (MCE)$
Level ­3II tion
1% in 50 Years 4975 – – – Level ­3III – –
Level ­3IV

(a) ‘–’ denotes hazard level not considered

(b) Level 1 denotes ‘no damage’ (serviceability); Level 2 denotes ‘repairable damage’ (damage control); and Level 3 denotes ‘no collapse’ (col-
lapse prevention)
(c) I, II, III, and IV denote the important class of buildings, where class I denotes buildings of minor importance for public safety; class II denotes
ordinary buildings; class III denotes buildings whose seismic resistance is of importance in view of consequences associated with a collapse
(e.g. schools, assembly halls, cultural institutions etc.); and class IV denotes buildings whose integrity during earthquakes is of vital importance
for civil protection (e.g. hospitals, fire stations, power plants etc.)
(d) BSE denotes Basic Safety Earthquake; and MCE denotes Maximum Considered Earthquake
(e) * denotes a serviceability earthquake which is typically 0.5 times the level of ground shaking corresponding to a design earthquake, that can
occur during the lifetime of a structure
(f) # denotes a maximum expected level of ground shaking at the site, equivalent to 1.25 to 1.5 times the design earthquake
(g) $ denotes a maximum considered earthquake and corresponds to the upper bound on the expected ground shaking depending on the geologi-
cal conditions at the site. This level of ground shaking is typically 2 times the ground shaking corresponding to the design earthquake

13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
introduced in the Structural Engineers Association of Cali-
fornia Vision 2000 report in the mid-1990s. In the green seg-
mented line of the chart as shown in Fig. 2a (for the Occu-
pancy categories I and II; e.g. common residential and office
buildings), the structure is generally designed for life safety
at the design earthquake intensity level (as depicted by the
middle green square). The same building can be designed for
collapse prevention for the maximum considered earthquake
intensity level (as depicted by the lower right side green
square). However, if the building is to be designed for a life
safety level (instead of collapse prevention level) for a maxi-
mum considered earthquake intensity, then it is possible to
accomplish this only with PBSD. In such a case, the building
will have a higher performance than intended by the building
code. The blue segmented line represents occupancy cat-
egory III buildings (e.g. schools, colleges, daycare facilities
etc.) and the red segmented line represents occupancy cat-
egory IV buildings (e.g. hospitals, fire stations etc.) require
more strict criteria in case of an earthquake. For example, a
common residential building is designed for life safety under
the design earthquake intensity level as discussed above,
but a hospital will be designed for immediate occupancy for
the same earthquake intensity. A PBSD is also possible for
hospitals as well as schools and colleges with more stringent
criteria and more rigorous review procedures. In short, it is
possible to do the performance-based design of any build-
ing of any height until it satisfies some basic code criteria.
As discussed above, PBSD methods should consider
multiple performance objectives. Panagiotakos and Fardis
(1999b), Browning (2001) and Kappos and Stefanidou
(2010) consider only a single performance objective. How-
ever, FEMA 273 (1997), SEAOC (1999), Priestley et al.
(2007) and ASCE 41 (2017) consider multiple performance
objectives relating to the expected ground shaking at the site
(refer Table 2). Another important aspect of PBSD methods
is the consideration of multiple performance control criteria.
Most of the current PBSD methods do not consider multi-
ple performance control criteria. SEAOC (1999), Browning
(2001) and Priestley et al. (2007) only consider drift as a
performance control criterion. However, FEMA 273 (1997),
Panagiotakos and Fardis (1999b) and ASCE 41 (2017)
consider only chord rotation of the structural element as a
performance control criterion. Only the deformation-based
design method by Kappos and Stefanidou (2010) considers
both chord rotation as well as drift as the performance con-
trol criterion (refer Table 2).
7.1 Specification of Performance Objectives
Specification of expected seismic performance in terms of
damage states is called a performance objective. It is the
affirmation of the allowable performance of a building. A
performance objective comprises two key elements, i.e. the
‘damage state’ and ‘seismic hazard’. The performance of
a structure is expressed by the delegation of permissible
damage to an earthquake hazard. The level is indicated by
the damage and the hazard of an earthquake by the ground
movements. For a given building, if a performance objective
is specified at more than one seismic hazard level or more
than one performance level expected at a seismic hazard,
then it is called multiple performance objectives. A perfor-
mance objective quantifies the building’s performance in
terms of the response quantities that will be useful to the
owner/designer to make the decision. The standard perfor-
mance level is divided into two stages of damage: struc-
tural and non-structural damage. The accumulation of both
damages gives the structure an overall level of performance.
ASCE 41 (2017) defines discrete performance levels defined
by an appropriate acceptable range of strength and deforma-
tion demands on the structural and non-structural compo-
nents of the structural system to evaluate the response of the
building. These levels being used are in the ascending order
of structural damage, i.e. represented by the inelastic chord
rotation and deformation of the hinge (which is defined by
the moment–curvature diagram), while the non-structural
damage is associated with the peak floor acceleration and
inter-storey drift. These performance objectives are then uti-
lized to estimate the probable losses to life, economy, and
other physical losses to infrastructure/community, using the
available empirical relations.
A performance level is the maximum acceptable damage,
given that the ground motion occurs. Vision 2000 (1995)
introduced four performance levels, namely Fully Opera-
tional (FO), Functional (F), Life Safety (LS), and Near
Collapse (NC). The first level is ‘FO’ (also called ‘Oper-
ational—O’). Structures accepting this level of efficiency
do not harm the structural and non-structural elements. The
building will usually run without interruption, but minor
modifications for fuel, water, and so on should be made.
Even the building’s residents are not expected to vacate. This
is called the most competitive standard of efficiency, but it
cannot be done with any structure because it is ineffective
from an economic standpoint. The second level corresponds
to ‘F’ (also called ‘Immediate occupancy—IO’). Structures
with such an immediate occupancy degree of success are
projected to have minimal structural damage and only minor
damage to the non-structural elements. The structure after
an earthquake is secure to reoccupy. However, certain non-
structural elements might therefore separate. At this stage,
the risk for the inhabitants is much smaller. This efficiency
standard is also not so economical. Life protection is the
fundamental safety provision in accordance with the code.
The third level represents ‘Life Safety’. It is anticipated
that structures with this standard can do significant harm
to the structural as well as non-structural components. The
residents will not be able to relocate the house; repairs are
13
 Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

needed before returning to the building. At this amount,
the vulnerability of the inhabitants of buildings increases
slightly. Life protection under the design basis earthquake
according to FEMA 356 (2000) is considered as a specific
output goal. The last performance level is ‘NC’ (also called
‘Collapse Prevention—CP’). Structures that reach this stand-
ard of performance can provide an elevated risk to the life
of the residents, due to failure of the non-structural com-
ponents. However, the loss of life can be prevented due to
the formation of plastic hinges in structural members. Res-
toration work is not advisable, as the damage is extensive
and hence the structure has to be dismantled in most cir-
cumstances. The terminology of each of these performance
levels available in the literature is summarized in Tables 4
and 5.
The performance levels are described in terms of accept-
able limits for structural and non-structural damage as well
as post-earthquake performance in terms of functionality
(i.e. serviceability—in this limit state, it is desired that the
structure deform in elastic range and does not suffer any
damage) and repair costs (i.e. repairability—corresponds to
damage control limit state for a moderate earthquake, the
structures may have entered in an inelastic range but the
damage is repairable). Further, it can be considered as the
safety level of the occupants in the building. It corresponds
to the limit state of collapse for a severe earthquake, the
structures enter well into the inelastic range so that the dam-
age need not be repairable, but total collapse is not allowed.
The higher the occupancy level, the higher the risk for the
people inside the building. Expected earthquake hazards and
performance levels are coupled to obtain the performance
objectives. Figure 2b shows the three performance objec-
tives, namely Basic Objective, Essential Hazardous Objec-
tive, and Safety-Critical Objective. Below basic objective

Table 4  Different performance levels considered in the literature

Performance The terminology used to define design performance objectives
levels
Vision ATC-40 SEAOC Calvi and Panagiotakos Kappos and EN 1998-3 FEMA 273
2000 (1996) (1999) Sullivan and Fardis Stefanidou (2005) (1997), FEMA
(1995) (2009) (1999a, b) (2010) 356 (2000);
ASCE 41 (2017)

Structural FO SP-1 (IO) SP-1 (OP) Level 1 Serviceability Serviceability DL S-1 (IO)
F SP-2 (DC) SP-2 (OC) Level 2 LS LS SD S-2 (DC)
LS SP-3 (LS) SP-3 (LS) Level 3 – CP NC S-3 (LS)
NC SP-4 (LT) SP-4 (NC) – – – – S-4 (LT)
– SP-5 (SS) SP-5 (C) – – – – S-5 (CP)
– SP-6 (ND) - – – – – S-6 (ND)
Non-structural – NP-A (OP) NP-1 (DR – – – – N-A (OP)
0%-10%)
– NP-B (IO) NP-2 (DR – – – – N-B (IO)
5%-30%)
– NP-C (LS) NP-3 (DR 20%- – – – – N–C (LS)
50%)
– NP-D (RH) NP-4 (DR 40%- – – – – N-D (RH)
80%)
– NP-E (ND) NP-5 – – – – N-E (ND)
(DR > 70%)

‘FO’ denotes fully operational (building should be functional with very minor/negligible structural damage & non-structural components oper-
ate); ‘F’ denotes functional (minor structural damage & non-structural components are secured and utilities are available. Risk of life-threatening
injury is negligible); ‘LS’ denotes life safety (significant structural damage & non-structural components are secured but may not operate. In
addition, the building may be repairable or it may be damaged to such an extent that repairs may be economically impractical); ‘NC’ denotes
near collapse (substantial structural and non-structural damage. Further, no consideration is given to the safety of non-structural components.
The building may undergo extensive damage which may be irreparable, but it should not collapse); ‘OP’ denotes operational (similar to FO); IO
denotes immediate occupancy (similar to F); ‘OC’ denotes occupiable; ‘C’ denotes collapsed; ‘DL’ denotes damage limitation (similar to FO);
SD denotes significant damage (similar to LS); ‘SP’ or ‘S’ denotes structural performance; ‘NP’ or ‘N’ denotes non-structural performance;
‘RH’ denotes reduced hazard (similar to NC); ‘DR’ denotes damage ratio; ‘DC’ denotes damage control (it is not a specific performance level,
but a range of post-earthquake damage states that could vary from SP-1/S-1 to SP-3/S-3); ‘LT’ denotes limited safety (it is not a specific level,
but a range of post-earthquake damage states that are less than SP-3/S-3 and better than SP-5/S-5); SS denotes structural stability (same as NC);
‘ND’ denotes not considered (this is not a performance level, but provides for situations, where non-structural seismic evaluation or retrofit is
performed); Level 1 denotes no damage (similar to FO and OP); Level 2 denotes repairable damage (similar to F and IO); Level 3 denotes no
collapse (similar to NC); serviceability objective is similar to Level 1; and CP denotes collapse prevention (similar to NC)
‘–’ denotes not defined

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Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

Table 5  Performance levels in Parameter Operational—O Immediate Life Collapse prevention—CP

terms of damage parameter occupancy—IO safety—LS

Structural damage Negligible Negligible Significant Extensive

Non-structural damage Negligible Minor Extensive Extensive
Injury No No Some More but no loss of life
Repair No No Required May not be practical
Loss 5% 15% 30% > 30%

performance is not accepted. For frequent earthquakes, the
only fully operational performance level is accepted. How-
ever, for very rare earthquakes, all four levels are accept-
able. ATC 40 (1996) specifies six standard structural and
five standard non-structural performance levels. Target
performance levels for a building are formed by combining
structural and non-structural performance levels as shown
in Table 6. The performance objective is fixed by selecting
a performance level for a given seismic hazard. Both ATC
40 (1996) and FEMA 356 (2000) documents cater to a range
of structural systems with detailed performance objectives
expressed in terms of deformation limits, for each perfor-
mance level (e.g. IO, LS, CP, etc.) and different structural
components (e.g. beam, slab, columns, etc.). The perfor-
mance levels in Eurocode (EN 1998 Part-3:2005) are defined
in terms of three limit states namely: Near Collapse (NC),
Significant Damage (SD) (or No collapse state) and Damage
Limitation (DL). Compared to Vision 2000 (1995) docu-
ment, FEMA 356 (2000) describes the performance level
in greater detail and also provides the analytical methods
(and accompanying examples) to monitor the damage effects
visually. FEMA 356 (2000) proved to be a comprehensive
assessment tool for PBSD of buildings at the beginning of
the 21st century. However, the document had several limita-
tions, such as being able to describe only the damage, but
not the associated losses and ignoring the variabilities and
uncertainties associated with various parameters represent-
ing hazard as well as capacity.
Like ATC 40 (1996), ASCE 41 (2017) also defines six
standard structural performance levels and five standard
non-structural performance levels and provides quantita-
tive rules for both structural and non-structural perfor-
mance levels. Figure 3 shows recommended four target
performance levels, namely FO, IO, LS, and CP in PBSD.
‘Fully Operational (FO)’ level corresponds to the highest
performance and the least loss, whereas ‘Collapse Preven-
tion (CP)’ corresponds to the lowest performance and the
most loss. The intended building performance objective
is defined by selecting a target performance level for a
given seismic hazard. SEAOC (1999) defines five struc-
tural as well as five non-structural performance levels and
designated them as SP and NP, respectively. Both per-
formance levels are numbered from 1 to 5. The perfor-
mance objective is formed by combining structural and
non-structural performance levels of the same number as
shown in Table 6. Panagiotakos and Fardis (1999b) and
Browning (2001) do not specify any performance level/
objectives explicitly. However, the performance levels cor-
responding to drift suggested by Calvi and Sullivan (2009)
may be used as performance objectives for design. In mul-
tiple performance objectives, the design is made to satisfy
member rotations at serviceability earthquakes, as well
as to check drift at the same level. Shear design is made
for life safety in earthquakes. Direct Displacement-Based
Design (DDBD) can consider multiple performance objec-
tives. Calvi and Sullivan (2009) have proposed a model

Table 6  Target building performance levels and ranges according to ASCE 41 (2017)
Non-structural perfor- Structural performance levels
mance levels
S-1 S-2 S-3 S-4 S-5 S-6
(Immediate (Damage (Life (Limited safety (Collapse preven- (Not
occupancy, IO) control range, safety, LS) range, LT) tion, CP) considered, ND)
DO)

N-A Operational 1-A 2-A – – – –

N-B IO 1-B 2-B 3-B – – –
N-C 1-C 2-C LS 3-C 4-C 5-C 6-C
N-D – 2-D 3-D 4-D 5-D 6-D
N-E – – – 4-E CP 5-E No rehabilitation

‘–’ denotes not recommended

13

Fig. 3  Target building performance levels
code for the displacement-based seismic design of struc-
tures, which includes guidelines for choosing the design
seismic hazard and design performance level based on
the structure type. Table 6 shows the design performance
objectives of different methods based on the structural and
non-structural performance levels.
8 Analysis Procedures
Performance-based design requires estimation of the extent
of damage in individual members of the building. This needs
a detailed analysis of the building for the estimated seismic
hazard. The analysis procedures are classified based on the
modelling considerations (linear and non-linear) and the
representation of earthquake forces (static and dynamic).
Building behaviour in earthquakes, however, is neither static
nor linear. To date, most seismic designs are still being
performed either using a linear static or a linear dynamic
analysis.
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
8.1 Linear Static and Dynamic Analysis
The linear static analysis is primarily meant for simple
and regular structures, where design seismic forces are
suggested to be proportional to the mass of the struc-
ture and typically varied in the range of 5–10% of the
weight of the building. It is used with an appropriate fac-
tor of safety to consider ambiguity in seismic demand
and capacity. No explicit checks are built-in to determine
yield patterns, ultimate strength and deformations. On the
other hand, linear dynamic analysis is regarded as more
reliable than the previous one, yet applicable for regular
structures in the stricter sense, though limited irregulari-
ties are permitted. This type of analysis has two types: (i)
Response spectrum/Modal analysis/Mode superposition
method; and (ii) Time-history method. The first method
is computationally economical. The calculations involved
aim at finding the response under a limited number of
modes, rather than calculating for the entire time history.
Indirectly, the time variable is eliminated from the solu-
tion. In the second method, the entire time history of the
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
structure’s response to an earthquake can be obtained by
finding the response at successive discrete time intervals,
with the help of a time-step sufficiently small to allow
extrapolation from one step to the next one. This method
overcomes all the limitations of the response spectrum
method, provided non-linear behaviour is not involved.
However, computational efforts are higher than the pre-
vious methods. As earthquakes are random, the design
based on one single event is insufficient. At least, three
representative earthquake motions are recommended.
However, seismic codes find it difficult to specify these
earthquake motions, and design engineers cannot do so
either. Therefore, this method is not used in practice,
except for special structures.
Linear procedures are appropriate when the expected
level of non-linearity is low. The linear modelling
described above basically consists of a simulation of the
relative stiffness of different components of a building.
The forces are distributed among the different members
in the ratio of stiffnesses, complying with the equilibrium
and compatibility conditions. The static procedures are
considered to be adequate, if the contribution of higher
modes is not significant. If the role of the first mode is
more than 75%, then the static analysis is considered to be
adequate. The linear static analysis gives a good indica-
tion of the behaviour of structures before the first yield
takes place. Linear dynamic analysis is widely regarded
by many practitioners today as the current state of the
art of structural earthquake analysis. While this analysis
technique is commonly available in commercial packages,
and more accurate than the linear static technique, par-
ticularly for structures responding within elastic limits.
Dynamic analysis is necessary for buildings having a sig-
nificant contribution of higher modes, torsional irregu-
larities, and non-orthogonal systems. Consequently, both
approaches have a limited ability to capture the inelastic
structural response and are unable to accurately predict
the building’s performance.
Fig. 4  Schematic view of the non-linear static analysis procedure
8.2 Non‑linear Static Analysis
Due to time constraints and high computational effort in
non-linear dynamic analysis, the non-linear static pushover
analysis is preferred by researchers and designers all across
the globe. Some of the codes such as ATC 40 (1996), FEMA
273 (1997), FEMA 356 (2000) and ASCE 41 (2017) rec-
ommend its use. In non-linear static analysis, the capacity
curve (commonly known as ‘pushover curve’) of the build-
ing, which represents a plot between the base shear and roof
displacement (refer Fig. 4), can be obtained with a definite
pattern of lateral load distribution along the height of build-
ing. The capacity curve helps in the estimation of the seismic
performance of the structure. The ideal load pattern is the
one that results in the same deformed shape of the building,
as expected under seismic loads. Accordingly, several load-
ing patterns (e.g. uniform, triangular, modal, multi-modal,
etc.) have been considered by the researchers for assessing
their adequacy in the pushover analysis (refer Fig. 5). The
lateral load distribution is considered an approximate rep-
resentation of the inertial forces developed in the structure
under an actual earthquake loading event and is imperative.
The magnitude of the lateral load is applied incrementally
while allowing for a series of plastic hinges to be devel-
oped to identify the critical sections (or weak links) of the
building and also to study the inelastic behaviour (refer
Fig. 4). The non-linear load-deformation characteristics of
individual components are directly incorporated throughout
the mathematical model that illustrates how monotonically
increasing lateral loads are applied to the structure. Con-
sequently, different structural members may successively
yield. As a result, the structure loses stiffness with each
event of yielding until a target displacement is exceeded.
The accuracy of the pushover analysis depends upon the
selection of an ideal lateral load distribution pattern (that
can consider the fundamental and/or higher mode effects).
A variety of methods are used for pushover analysis that
includes energy-based methods, conventional methods, and
13

Fig. 5  Typical lateral load patterns used in the non-linear static analysis
adaptive methods. The most commonly preferred method is
the ‘conventional method’ used as a tool for performance-
based assessment which includes the capacity spectrum
method—a technique for building seismic evaluation, also
called equivalent linearization method (Freeman et al. 1975;
ATC 40:1996), N2 method—a variant of capacity spectrum
method based on inelastic demand spectra which established
using reduction factors from a typical elastic spectrum (Faj-
far 1999), and the displacement coefficient method (FEMA
273:1997; FEMA 356:2000).
It is a simple method that provides useful information
on the yield strength, initial- and post-yield stiffness, peak
displacements, failure mechanism, and ductility of the struc-
ture while exposing the weakness of the structure designed
by using linear analysis (Aschheim 2002; Freeman 2004;
Fajfar et al. 2005). Due to these reasons, design engineers
prefer to use the pushover analysis method. However, the
method is highly dependent on the loading pattern and does
not account for the record-to-record variability in the ground
motion. This method appears to provide a reasonable esti-
mate of inelastic demand distribution and damage in the
structures that are dominated by the first-mode response;
but the technique has been demonstrated to be a poor pre-
dictor of the distribution of damage, particularly in taller
buildings (long-period structures). This method does not
incorporate the bi-directional/tri-directional effects of earth-
quake loading. However, the method offers an acceptable
solution for regular symmetric and medium-rise buildings
(ATC 40:1996).
8.3 Non‑linear Dynamic Analysis
Dynamic response refers primarily to the acceleration and
displacement response of structural systems subjected to
earthquake ground excitations. Non-linear dynamic (time-
history) analysis is the most rigorous procedure available
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
for the computation of seismic forces and displacements of
structures. This procedure involves a stepwise solution of
the equation of motions of a particular dynamic system by
incorporating both the material and geometric non-linear-
ities. The application of this method requires the selection
of a suite of ground-motion time histories, which may be
real (recorded) or artificially generated (simulated) accel-
erograms. The method provides a more accurate estimate of
structural behaviour since the response is obtained by direct
application of earthquake ground motion (refer Fig. 6), and
thus offers multifold advantages over the pushover analysis:
(i) all vibrational modes of a structure can be included; (ii)
the cyclic degradation of strength and stiffness can be explic-
itly modelled; and (iii) the large record-to-record variabili-
ties originating from the differences in the characteristics
(e.g. frequency content) of the ground motions are inherently
included in the analysis. Eurocode (EN 1998 Part-1:2004)
recommends the use of at least 3 ground motion time histo-
ries (artificial, simulated, and recorded ground motion) to be
used for analysis and suggests using the most adverse struc-
tural response. ASCE 7 (2016) recommends a minimum
number of 11 pairs of ground motion (i.e. 22 ground motion
record set having two orthogonal components of motion);
whereas, FEMA P695 (2009) uses 28 near-field (NF) and 22
far-field (FF) ground-motion records. The selected ground
motions should be representative of the events with the same
tectonic regime, consistent magnitudes and rupture charac-
teristics as the events that dominate the target response spec-
trum. Out of this time-varying response, the peak response
parameters are considered as an output of the individual
time-history analysis. The design seismic response of a
structure is estimated as its median/mean response.
However, non-linear dynamic analysis is very time-
consuming and computationally challenging due to com-
plexities involved in the (i) selection of appropriate ground
motions representative of site characteristics, (ii) explicit
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
Fig. 6  Application of time
history to a building for the
non-linear dynamic analysis
modelling of strength and stiffness degradation of structural
elements using appropriate hysteretic models, and (iii) the
sensitivity of structural response to damping, which is usu-
ally assumed based on the material of construction. Due to
these complexities, the promised accuracy of the method
can seldom be realized (Clough and Penizen 1993; Chopra
2007). Therefore, this method is less popular among design
engineers. Freeman (2004) and Villaverde (2007) reported
that the solutions obtained by any method are as accurate as
the underlying assumptions and that none of the available
methods has so far proved to be accurate to model the actual
and known structural performance that is recorded under
real earthquakes.
Non-linear analysis can prove to be a better procedure
compared to linear analysis, as it can explain modes of fail-
ure due to yielding and the potential for progressive collapse.
In non-linear analysis, in addition to the stiffness, strength
and ductility of individual members are also simulated. Non-
linear methods are indispensable, if behaviour under major
or severe earthquakes is to be evaluated, where the damage
is implied (Pore 2007). Both the non-linear static and non-
linear dynamic analyses consider the effects such as mem-
ber ductility, the effect of higher modes, etc., explicitly in
the design. Table 2 summarizes the recommended analysis
methods in the literature which are to be used in different
performance-based design approaches.
9 Estimation of Stiffness
During the earthquake, RC members are subjected to large
inelastic strains resulting in severe cracking, and therefore
the effective moment of inertia (Ie) of the element reduces
significantly. This leads to a significant reduction in the stiff-
ness of the element when compared with those estimated
assuming gross-section properties. The stiffness of RC
frame members during seismic response can vary ± 50% or
sometimes even more. This reduction in the element stiffness
and subsequently the structural stiffness leads to an increase
in response quantities such as drift, plastic rotation of mem-
bers etc., which in turn affect the performance of a structure.
Effective stiffness is computed based on the secant stiffness
to yield forces and it is independent of the force level applied
to the RC components (ASCE 41:2017). In the effective stiff-
ness calculation, the moment of inertia of the gross concrete
section (Ig) is modified using property modifiers to arrive
at an equivalent (cracked/effective) moment of inertia (Ie).
Codes and researchers (Paulay and Priestley 1992; FEMA
356:2000; EN 1998 Part-3:2005; NZS 3101 Part-2:2006;
TEC 2007; Priestley et al. 2007; CSA A23.3:2014; ASCE
41:2017; PEER TBI 2017; ACI 318:2019) provide guide-
lines for the consideration of effective stiffness and the typi-
cal range and recommended average values for stiffness are
listed in Table 7. Among the available PBSD methods, few
methods (SEAOC 1999; Browning 2001) are considering the
gross stiffness (refer Table 2). It is to be noted that the effec-
tive stiffness values recommended in codes and literature
differ significantly which can be attributed to primarily the
differences in different studies regarding modes of deforma-
tions (e.g. flexure, shear, bond-slip etc.) of the element con-
sidered in estimating effective stiffness of the RC sections.
10 Modelling Strategies
As mentioned earlier, considerable development has taken
place in the non-linear analysis of buildings. Non-linear
static and dynamic procedures are available claiming real-
istic assessment during earthquakes. These procedures
require non-linear modelling of an individual element to
predict the overall behaviour of the building. The accuracy
of the predicted behaviour depends on the precision of the
assumed non-linear behaviour of the individual elements.
Two methods have been suggested to obtain the non-linear
13
13
Table 7  Effective stiffness (flexural rigidity) values for modelling RC components
Elements Condition Property modifiers for section properties
Paulay FEMA EN NZS 3101-2, ULS NZS 3101-2, TEC Priestley et al. CSA ASCE 41 PEER ACI 318
and 356 1998-3 (2006) SLS (2006) (2007) (2007) A23.3 (2017) TBI (2019)
Priestley (2000) (2005) (2014) (2017)
(1992)

Beams CTB 0.40EcIg 0.50Ig 0.50EcIg 0.40EcIg (Re) 0.70EcIg (Re) 0.40EcIg 0.17EcIg − 0.44EcIg 0.35EcIg 0.30Ig 0.50EcIg 0.35EcIg
(L/D > 4) (Re) 0.35EcIg (T&L) 0.60EcIg (T&L)
0.35EcIg
(T&L)
PB – EcIg 0.50EcIg – – 0.40EcIg – 0.35EcIg EcIg EcIg –
(L/D > 4)
CLB * – 0.50EcIg 0.60EcIg 0.75EcIg 0.40EcIg – 0.35EcIg – – –
(L/D ≤ 4)
Columns Pu ≥ 0.5Agfc 0.80EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.80EcIg EcIg 0.80EcIg 0.12EcIg − 0.86EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.70EcIg
Pu ≤ 0.3Agfc 0.60EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.55EcIg 0.80EcIg 0.80EcIg 0.12EcIg − 0.86EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.70EcIg
Pu ≤ 0.1Agfc - 0.50EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.40EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.40EcIg 0.12EcIg − 0.86EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.30EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.70EcIg
Tension 0.40EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.50EcIg – – – 0.12EcIg − 0.86EcIg 0.70EcIg 0.30EcIg – 0.70EcIg
Walls Uncracked – 0.80EcIg 0.50EcIg – – – - 0.70EcIg – 0.75EcIg 0.70EcIg
Cracked – 0.50EcIg 0.50EcIg 0.32EcIg − 0.44EcIg 0.50EcIg − 0.70EcIg 0.40EcIg − 0.80EcIg 0.20EcIg − 0.30EcIg 0.35EcIg 0.35EcIg 0.75EcIg 0.35EcIg
Slabs Conven- – - 0.50EcIg – – – – 0.25EcIg * 0.50EcIg 0.25EcIg
tional
Post-ten- – – 0.50EcIg – – – – 0.25EcIg * 0.50EcIg -
sioned

CTB denotes the conventional beam; PB denotes the prestressed beam; CLB denotes the coupling beam; ULS denotes the ultimate limit state; SLS denotes the serviceability limit state; L and
D denote the length and depth of the beam, respectively; Pu denotes the factored axial load; Ag denotes the gross (uncracked) area; fc denotes the compressive strength of concrete; Ig denotes the
gross moment of inertia; Re denotes the rectangular beam section; T&L denote the T- and L-shape beam section; ‘–’ denotes the data not available; ‘*’ denotes see reference for more informa-
tion; and Ec denotes the modulus of elasticity of concrete
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

load-deformation curves of RC elements: (i) experimentally
by testing the element or its model under cyclic loading;
and (ii) empirically using the relationships available in the
literature (ATC 40:1996; FEMA 273:1997). The strength
computation of a RC member is possible, but the predic-
tion of its post-yielding behaviour under cyclic loading is
difficult. Experimental evaluation is also not reliable as the
behaviour depends on several factors, such as reinforcement
detailing, stress level, confinement available, anchorage of
reinforcement and strength of adjacent joints and members.
It is impossible to simulate all these factors in testing. The
task is further complicated by improper detailing and inad-
equate confinement.
In terms of structural modelling, the performance-based
seismic design works on a different philosophy than the con-
ventional prescriptive force-based design. In PBSD, the ulti-
mate goal is to determine the realistic strength and deforma-
tion capacity of the structure. Unlike conventional seismic
design which makes use of the characteristic strength (95%
confidence level) and partial safety factors on materials and
loads, the PBSD methodology utilizes the mean (average)
strength with all the partial safety factors on materials and
loads being taken equal to unity. As a result, the strength of
the building estimated using this approach turns out to be
higher than the design strength, and the ratio between the
yield strength and design strength is usually termed as over-
strength. To evaluate the non-linear behaviour of a build-
ing during a cyclic loading event, modelling approaches
employed shall incorporate all the anticipated modes of fail-
ure that lead to the deterioration of the structural elements.
A variety of modelling approaches are available in the lit-
erature to model the non-linear behaviour of RC compo-
nents which can be broadly classified under three groups: (i)
lumped plasticity model, (ii) distributed inelasticity model,
and (iii) continuum model. The level of accuracy and com-
plexity increases while moving from the lumped plasticity to
the continuum modelling approach. The schematic diagrams
of each of these modelling strategies are illustrated in Fig. 7.
In the ‘Lumped Plasticity’ (also termed as ‘Concentrated
Plasticity’) model, an elastic line element is used to simulate
the behaviour of members; while yielding is assumed to take
place at generalized plastic hinges of zero-length at the ends
or any other expected potential plastic hinge locations in a
member (refer Fig. 7). The plastic hinge modelling assump-
tion reduces the computational demand and provides a bal-
ance between accuracy and complexity levels. These mod-
els can be easily used to calibrate and capture the observed
non-linear behaviour of RC members (i.e. from the start of
yielding to the residual strength, including strength and stiff-
ness degradation from concrete crushing and spalling, rebar
buckling and fracture, and bond-slip). The non-linearity in
lumped plasticity models can be considered by using either
of the two hinge models, namely, the moment-rotation hinge
and the fibre-hinge. The moment-rotation hinge models are
based on the definition of the phenomenological relation of
the overall force–deformation response or moment-rotation
(refer Fig. 8) of structural members (beam, column, shear-
wall etc.), as observed from the experimental test results
(ATC 72-1:2010). In the fibre-hinge model, fibre-monitor-
ing cross-sections are considered at the plastic hinge loca-
tions, where the non-linearity of the member is assumed to
be lumped. The discretization of monitored sections (into
fibres of confined and unconfined concrete and rebars) yields
an accurate response by obtaining the P-M (i.e. axial force
Fig. 8  Typical moment-rotation hinge model

Fig. 7  Schematic of non-linear

modelling approaches

13

and bending moment) interaction of beams and columns
directly by the numerical integration of the inelastic mate-
rial response. The plastic hinge length for the fibre-hinge is
obtained from empirical relations derived from experimental
test results.
In the ‘Distributed Inelasticity’ model, several cross-sec-
tions with finite lengths are considered throughout the length
of a member (refer Fig. 7). At each of these cross-sections,
the non-linearity of a member is studied by discretizing the
section into several fibres of confined and unconfined con-
crete and reinforcing steel bar. Figure 9 shows a typical dis-
cretization pattern of a cross-section at the fibre-hinge. Each
fibre in the cross-section is assigned the corresponding mate-
rial stress–strain relationship. The number of fibre cross-
sections and their location is determined by the numerical
integration rule, which implicitly defines the plastic hinge
Fig. 9  Discretization of a typical RC section at the fibre hinge
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
length over which the inelasticity of the element can occur.
This model has an advantage over the ‘Lumped Plasticity’
model as it does not restrict the inelasticity at the ends of
the element, but it still requires a very large computational
capacity and computation time (though less than continuum
models). Also, it is relatively difficult to incorporate the flex-
ural-shear interaction, bond-slip behaviour, rebar buckling,
and fracture using distributed plasticity models.
In ‘Continuum’ modelling, the non-linear behaviour of
the structural members is evaluated by using finite element
(FE) meshing throughout the section and along the length of
members (refer Fig. 7) to represent both concrete and steel
reinforcement bars. The use of such explicit FE models is
mainly limited to detailed analysis of critical elements (such
as beam-column joints etc.) due to its high complexity, time
consumption, and computational cost.
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
11 Force–Deformation Relationships
and Acceptance Criteria
Force control and displacement control actions can be used
to describe the applicable structure actions. For deforma-
tion-controlled behaviour, the force–deformation non-lin-
ear relationship assigned to material stress–strain curves or
plastic hinges must be defined for non-linear static analysis
indicating the post-yield behaviour and plastic deforma-
tion of structural members under monotonically increasing
lateral loads. Some of such reliable and useful guidelines
are FEMA 440 (2005) and ASCE 41 (2017) displaying
these relationships. The performance levels (FO, IO, LS,
CP) discussed earlier are available for PBSD evaluation
of structural components are identified and assigned on
the force–deformation nonlinear relationships appointed
to material stress–strain curves or element plastic hinges
(refer Fig. 10). Generally, five points marked A, B, C, D,
and E are used to describe the force–deformation action
of a component hinge. The corresponding points to the
prescribed performance levels are also stipulated as the
‘hinge acceptance criteria’ that describe the force–dis-
placement or moment-rotation behaviour of a component
hinge. Based on various experimental results on the cyclic
behaviour of beam-column elements, several documents
have proposed the force–deformation cyclic backbone
curves (FEMA 356:2000; ASCE 41:2017). These curves
are capable of modelling the realistic behaviour of RC
structural components. Figure 10 shows the typical back-
bone curve as defined in ASCE 41 (2017). The first branch
of the backbone curve (AB) represents the elastic behav-
iour of the member, the second branch (BC) represents
the post-yield (hardening region) and pre-peak behaviour
of the member, and the third branch (CDE) represents the
Fig. 10  Backbone curve and generalized moment-rotation relation for depicting modelling and acceptance criteria of the ductile RC component
(adapted from ASCE 41:2017)
post-peak behaviour (softening region) of the member,
where the strength of the member drops due to strain sof-
tening primarily caused by the rebar buckling.
12 Design Process
The PBD aims to increase structural efficiency by typically
taking advantage of material non-linearity and optimized
design procedures and to create more reliable and resilient
buildings whose behaviour can be accurately predicted
and relied upon. The structure of the PBD process is to:
(a) define appropriate performance targets for different sce-
narios; (b) investigate alternative designs that can achieve
the objectives; (c) verify that the objectives are met or iterate
until satisfied. The concept of PBD has the merit of broad-
ening the spectrum of solutions that can be considered for
each particular problem, freeing the designer from any code
or provision, provided that the final design meets the local
jurisdiction’s reliability target and performance goals. A
typical PBD approach would use slightly modified code
provisions for the initial design to then use advanced non-
linear analysis to verify performance. If performance is not
satisfied or shown to have spare capacity, the design would
be modified until acceptable results are achieved.
The structural design of RC buildings is closely con-
trolled by the provisions of the prevailing seismic codes.
The primary intent of seismic code provisions is to pro-
vide buildings that are capable of resisting collapse when
subjected to the very rare, but relatively severe earthquake
events that can affect them. Commentary to the provisions
indicates an expectation that conforming buildings will also
be capable of withstanding more frequent, but less severe
earthquake events with relatively limited levels of damage.
Critical buildings such as hospitals, conforming to special
13
 Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering

provisions provided for the design will be able to survive
very strong earthquakes with so little damage that they could
quickly be restored to service. Regardless of these implied
tiers of performance, the fact remains that the code provi-
sions were empirically developed based on the observation
of past earthquake damage, to avoid the damage occurrence
with the potential to result in collapse. On the other hand,
typical procedures in PBSD assess design acceptability by
confirming materials, configurations, detailing, strength,
and stiffness to prescriptive criteria. Through this method
of conformity, the engineer does not explicitly verify that the
structure will achieve the desired performance but instead
verifies that the design parameters adhere to what is man-
dated by the code. Many believe that this process is con-
structing the evolution of the structural engineer’s role by
prioritizing code knowledge and prescriptive requirements
rather than one’s ability to identify acceptable performance
parameters and produce creative and innovative solutions to
engineering challenges.
Figure 11 shows the process involved in the different
PBSD methods. As said earlier, the first step in the PBSD
process is to establish performance objectives. In a typical
prescriptive process, these objectives are never explicitly
outlined, and the designer will instead adhere to applicable
code prescriptions (i.e. the structural engineer will either
increase the lateral forces used for design or decrease the
permissible drift limits to attain better performance). Con-
versely, in a performance-based environment, the engineer
will begin the process by identifying qualitative performance
objectives. These objectives are simple statements of perfor-
mance that assist both the structural engineer and any poten-
tial clients in understanding the goals of the design before it
begins. Emphasis is more on safety, cost, or even the use of
innovative techniques. The following are some examples of
qualitative performance objectives: (i) the structure should
have a low probability of being unusable following a DBE
event; and (ii) occupants should have a high probability of
being safe and able to exit the building for a given DBE.
In PBSD, the engineer must quantify the performance
objectives into statements of exact probability so that they
can be explicitly designed. In a seismic design approach,
this would be the stage where hazard levels are identified

Selection of seismic hazard,

target building performance
level and corresponding drift

Assumption of target
displacement using given
equations and factor

Selection of seismic Estimation of effective mass Proportioning of longitudinal

hazard and target building and transverse reinforcement
performance objectives Method-I Method-II of RC components for gravity
and serviceability earthquake
Estimation of Estimation of initial
Assumption of initial effective period period
dimesnsions and corresponding to
target displacement Estimation of chord rotation for
reinforcement of different
and system ductility life-safety earthquake using
RC components
Estimation of gross elastic analysis for 5% damped
stiffness elastic spectrum with
Estimation of member stiffness at yield
Development of inelastic model effective stiffness

Estimation of Estimation of yield Estimation of chord rotation

Estimation of performance base shear base shear demand using inelastic to
level of building using elastic chord rotation ratios
non-linear static or
non-linear dynamic method
Sizing of members for Estimation of chord rotation
estimated base shear
capacity using equations
based on memdber size
Check and reinforcement
estimated Verification of
performance level Not OK target drift and
with target Revision of
ductility using Not OK
design Verification of
performance non-linear Not OK Increse the
objectives static analysis chord rotation
reinforcement
capacity
OK OK
OK
Capacity design and detailing
Capacity design and detailing for desired ductility Capacity design of joints

(a) FEMA 273 (1997) (b) SEAOC (1999) (c) Panagiotakos and Fardis (1999b)

Fig. 11  Flow chart of various performance-based seismic design methods available in the literature

13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
Selection of seismicity
and performance level
Plotting of 5% damped
elastic displacement
spectrum corresponding to
design seismic intensity
Selection of drift
corresponding to target
performance level
Estimation of floor
displacements
corresponding to design drift
using displacement profile
based on building height
Estimation of displacement,
mass and height of
equivalent SDOF system
using displacement profile
Assumption of member sizes
Estimation of yield drift
using equations based on
Estimation of target beam size and evaluation
period using equation of design displacement
based on allowable drift ductility
Initial proportioning of Estimation of equivalent
members based on gravity viscous damping
load requirements corresponding to design
displacement ductility
using equations
Check:
target period < Increase Evaluation of effective
No
estimated period member sizes period from displacement
spectrum corresponding to
design displacement
Yes and estimated
equiavlent damping
Check:
Increase strength Estimation of effective
design base shear > No
of yielding members stiffness an design
code base shear
base shear and distribution
to floors
Yes
Design of beam plastic
hinges for lesser of:
Check:
Increase moment (i) seismic moments;
strong column No
capacity of column (ii) gravity moments; and
weak beam
(iii) inelastic displacement
mechanism
Yes
Capacity design and detailing Capacity design and
reinforcemnt detailing
(d) Browning (2001) (e) Priestley et al. (2007)
Fig. 11  (continued)
Selection and scaling of
seismic actions for
serviceability and life
safety earthquake
Elastic analysis of
building for 2/3 to 3/4 of
serviceability earthquake
Estimation of inelastic
rotation correspoding to
elastic rotation using
empirical equations
Estimation of yield
rotation correspoding to
target rotational ductility
Estimation of yield
moment for yielding
members and design of
reinforcement
Developing partial
inelastic model
Non-linear time history
analysis of building for
ground motions scaled to
serviceability earthquake
Check for
max. drift, plastic
rotation of yileding RC Not OK Increase in
components and reinforcement
rotational
ductility
OK
Non-linear time history
analysis of building for
ground motions scaled to
life safety earthquake
Design of non-yielding
RC elements for life
safety earthquake
Design of shear
reinforcement in beams
and columns for 1.2 and
2 times in case of life
safety and serviceability
earthquake, respectively
Detailing for
confinement, anchorage
and lap splices for level
of inelasticity expected in
each member
(f) Kappos and Stefanidou (2010)
13

from acceleration time histories and probabilities of risk
events are evaluated. These are referred to as quantitative
performance objectives. Some examples of the quantitative
performance objectives are: (i) the structure should have less
than a 10% chance of collapse given the occurrence of the
MCE; (ii) members or connections should have less than a
3 × ­10–5 chance per year of structural failure as a result of
live loading; and (iii) not more than one earthquake event in
10 years should cause swaying troubling to occupants. Once
quantitative performance objectives have been identified, the
initial design process can proceed.
The authors believe that good design should be based on
concepts that incorporate performance objectives upfront in
the design decision process and that PBSA should be a veri-
fication and refinement process of a good conceptual design.
A bad choice of a structural system cannot be transformed
into a desirable alternative, even with the most sophisticated
PBSA. Also, conceptual design should be easy to implement
even for ordinary structures that comprise most of the struc-
tural engineering work in consulting offices. Therefore, it is
necessary to assess if the designed building meets the per-
formance objectives targeted by the owner. The computation
of consequences is also important in allowing engineers to
compare the benefits and drawbacks of different design itera-
tions. They can compare the design consequences to the set
performance goals, and check whether the goals have been
met or not. There are two distinct types of consequences,
which are monetary (cost) and casualty (safety). The prob-
abilities of different types of damage can be estimated by the
fragility curves, and these probabilities are used to compute
the cost and safety levels of the proposed structure. If the
risks associated with the design can be accepted under the
proposed performance standards, it is no longer necessary
to repeat the design process. In case the actual performance
of the building does not comply with the targeted objectives,
the next step would be to revise the design to achieve the
target. Once the design is revised, the steps are repeated to
assess the performance of the building. Hence, it is an itera-
tive process that is followed till the targeted performance
objectives are achieved. Once the design has been com-
pleted, the performance of the structure can then be verified
through a variety of methods, with the most common being
computer-based analytical simulations or the physical testing
of prototypes. DDBD is claimed as a non-iterative method.
However, the method does not suggest any guidelines for
initial member proportioning. Designers must select initial
geometry based on their experience or size dictated by non-
seismic loading. As per Priestley et al. (2007), moment–cur-
vature (M-Ø) analysis is required to be performed in the
design process. However, it cannot be performed before the
estimation of reinforcement. Hence, iterations are required
(ACI 369.1:2017). Further, Chopra and Goel (2001) have
reported that the initial design is considered satisfactory
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
if (a) the demand ductility (local or global) in all parts of
the structure is less than the corresponding ductility capac-
ity; and (b) the inter-storey drift at all levels is below the
2.5% limit (Pore 2007). If any of these conditions are not
met, then revision is required, and the design procedure
should be repeated. The Pacific Earthquake Engineering
Research (PEER) PBSD methodology provides one of the
most accepted frameworks in the field, with clear guidance
to quantitatively assess building performance. The procedure
is formalized on a probabilistic basis. Performance assess-
ment is analysed in terms of four variables: intensity of the
event (intensity measure), structural response to it (engineer-
ing demand parameter), damage estimation (damage meas-
ure), and resulting losses (decision variable) (Deierlein et al.
2003).
12.1 Member Proportioning
In design practice, initial proportioning is done based on
experience, as no guidelines for the selection of initial mem-
ber sizes are available. The ideal PBSD method should con-
sider multiple performance objectives and multiple perfor-
mance control criteria. Further, the method should provide
guidelines to suggest initial member sizes as per the target
performance level or roof displacement. The available pro-
cedures of PBSD are essentially iterative. However, it has
been observed that the modified target period method (using
gross-section stiffness) (Browning 2001) can be a very use-
ful tool for initial member size selection to avoid iterations
involving costly and time-consuming non-linear analysis
procedures. Based on the extensive literature review, Khose
et al. (2012) developed a method for Comprehensive Per-
formance-Based Seismic Design (CPBSD) of RC frame
buildings to avoid/reduce the number of iterations. The main
features of their method are: (i) a combination of the salient
features of DDBD (Qi and Moehle 1991) and ASCE 41-06
(2007) methods to have control over drift as well as plastic
rotation of yielding components, (ii) guidelines to select
member sizes to satisfy the performance criterion of drift
and plastic rotation with a minimum number of iterations,
and (iii) iterations using elastic analysis to satisfy the target
period, based on cracked section stiffness to avoid iterations
using non-linear analysis.
13 Prescriptive‑ versus Performance‑Based
Seismic Design
In most cases, building control regulations prescribe specific
technical requirements without necessarily identifying the
objective that the requirements are meant to achieve. Stand-
ards containing the requirements written in this format are
said to be ‘prescriptive’ in nature.
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
Prescriptive codes are, in general, self-contained so that
references need not be made to another document for the full
understanding of a requirement. Verifying compliance with
the regulation is quite straight forward. Prescriptive codes,
however, have a serious drawback—they tend to inhibit
innovation and the introduction of new technology and mate-
rials. Even though they usually have an equivalency clause,
allowing alternative solutions, their application is difficult
in the absence of a stated objective. Therefore, this approach
is not suitable for the overall management of seismic risk.
For effective management, it is important to have multiple
performance levels for existing buildings. Furthermore,
specified solutions are based on the technology available
at the time the regulations are formed. The technology thus
gets locked in until a new version of the regulation is issued.
Hence, the performance-based codes state the objective of
the control regulation and specify measurable performances
that the building or its component should achieve, so that the
required objective is fulfilled (Humar et al. 1995).
The benefits of PBSD can be especially observed when
compared to the alternative process of prescriptive design.
As shown in Fig. 12, prescriptive methods typically revolve
around “achieving an acceptable Demand-to-Capacity (D/C)
ratio”, while performance methods aim to “achieve a speci-
fied level of performance, as correlated to appropriate conse-
quences” (Tang et al. 2008). In this way, the two methods are
similar; they both feature a series of design iterations aimed
at achieving a certain set of goals. Prescriptive designs focus
on capacity and demand, while performance design aims at
considering hazards, vulnerabilities, and consequences (refer
Fig. 12). In this way, PBSD can adjust itself to any design
scenario so that it behaves efficiently and allows engineers to
design structures that work well with their surrounding envi-
ronment. To properly execute this process, attention must be
focused on the early phases of the design process where the
design goals are typically set. This early focus has proven
to result in cost savings, optimal building performance, and
a clear understanding of the consequences of risk events.
Prescriptive design methods are becoming increasingly
problematic to use in areas of high risk from various natu-
ral and man-made hazards. Performance-based design is,
Fig. 12  Prescriptive/force-based Revise/Iterate/Improve design
design vs. performance-based
design
Capacity (C) or
Vulnerability
Is D/C ratio
acceptable?
Demand (D) or
Hazard
Yes
Good
design
Prescriptive or D/C Design
of course, the solution to this issue. Performance objectives
allow engineers to outline a required level of safety and con-
duct an explicit evaluation of a structure’s safety and reli-
ability for an earthquake scenario. This essentially allows
the clients, building owners, and stakeholders to assess the
explicit hazards on-site considering the building’s purpose
and usage, and to design for suitable performance levels,
following international procedures and norms (Anwar 2015).
PBSD has been provided with the opportunity to thrive in
seismic design primarily due to the ever-apparent limita-
tions of the historic prescriptive approach. The boundaries
imposed by code prescriptions tend to look over framing
systems that are particularly efficient in high-rise construc-
tion, as well as many other characteristics of tall buildings
that are not addressed in current code provisions, which may
result in less than desirable outcomes (Klemencic 2008).
Through the usage of PBSD, structural engineers can bet-
ter understand the site-specific conditions and their impact
on building performance. Constraints on building geometry,
framing systems and construction materials make it difficult
to design advanced modern structures, especially in areas
of high seismic activity. With more breathing room in the
design process, structural engineers can design buildings to
perform optimally in the seismic region where the structures
will be built.
13.1 Significance of PBSD
While technology and the practice of structural engineering
have advanced significantly in recent years, the method by
which building codes are implemented has not. As high-
rise construction continues to grow in scale and complexity,
structural engineers have ascertained that PBSD allows them
to take a more modern approach and challenge the bounda-
ries that prescriptive codes once limited them to. PBSD is
an opportunity for growth in the structural design indus-
try, as it has been introduced to accommodate the design
of new and innovative structures that flourish more from a
complete reversal of the prescriptive design process. These
methods emphasize the “output” rather than the “input” and
allow engineers to work towards an intended result. Further
Revise/Iterate/Improve design
Vulnerability (V) Are
No or Capacity consequences No
deterministically and/or
Hazard (H) or
probabilistically
Demand acceptable?
Yes
Good
design
Performance-Based Design
13

expedited by rapid technological growth, performance-
based methods are now more practical and achievable than
ever. While it has been adopted in some specific areas, most
engineering societies agree that PBSD is under-utilized by
modern engineers. Despite countless articles and guidelines
promoting the usage of performance-based design, its imple-
mentation in the workplace seems to be proving difficult for
most structural engineers. This difficulty could stem from a
variety of reasons: (i) a general lack of experience among
structural engineers; (ii) the unproven track record of PBSD;
(iii) a daunting transition from the prescriptive approach;
and (iv) an apparent lack of benefit to the overall design
process. While PBSD might not be ideal for every design
instance, structural engineers must address these issues
to ensure that both performance and prescriptive design
approaches are equally attainable for every project. Once
the roadblocks to PBSD are universally levelled, structural
engineering will become more efficient, cost-effective, and
innovative on a global scale.
13.2 Potential Applications of PBSD
Perhaps the greatest benefit to learning effective PBSD is
that it is a highly adaptable process, while it does have the
potential to be applied to nearly every design environment.
There are a few specific areas in which PBSD will especially
flourish. Firstly, for any structure or framing system that is
essential to either the owner or the surrounding community.
Large high-rise RC buildings, public bridges, and com-
munity centres to name a few can be considered as unique
structures that serve essential purposes. By incorporating
specific performance objectives into their design processes,
structural engineers can ensure that the designed struc-
tures are safe for residents and guarantee that newly con-
structed skyscrapers stay cost-effective, while maintaining
structural integrity during earthquake events. With PBSD,
structural engineers will be able to implement additional
safety measures where they are necessary, put extra empha-
sis on building strength when it is important to owners that
their structure will survive earthquake events, and empha-
size cost-efficiency when selecting materials to achieve
these goals. PBSD is commonly implemented in projects
where new and innovative building materials or construc-
tion techniques not covered by typical building codes are
being used. In these scenarios, PBSD has proven useful in
handling issues with progressive collapse, as well as in many
full-scale bridge designs. Performance criteria are also often
implemented in cases where the building owner might ask
for special risk assessments, even in design scenarios with
limited seismic activity. These requests are typically made
when the owner wants to ensure that the structure can with-
stand extreme loading conditions without significant struc-
tural damage. PBSD is useful when the focus is placed on
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
the economy of design and allows for the consideration of
typical design and construction options that might reduce
costs in particular scenarios (Szoke 2015).
One of the most common PBSD applications is for the
seismic design of tall buildings. Quantitative performance
targets are usually set following PEER Tall Buildings Ini-
tiative guidelines (PEER TBI:2017), Los Angeles Tall
Buildings Structural Design Council guidelines (LATB-
SDC 2017), Willford et al. (2008), and ASCE 41:2017 for
the two extreme cases: Immediate Occupancy, during fre-
quent Service Level Earthquakes (43-year return period),
and Collapse Prevention during the very rare Risk-Targeted
Maximum Considered Earthquake (MCER, 2475-year return
period). Current PBSD approaches are still improving their
aim for more resilient buildings, thanks to the knowledge
gained from recent earthquakes such as the 2011 Great East
Japan Earthquake. Seismic-induced accelerations resulted in
substantial economic losses due to damage to non-structural
components (Kasai et al. 2012). As already recognized in
current Japanese practice, the incorporation of supplemen-
tary damping systems has proved to be the next step towards
further resiliency and efficiency. The 181 Fremont Tower,
San Francisco, USA is an example of such a tall building
using damping and PBSD to produce a resilient approach
following the Resilience-Based Earthquake Design Initiative
for the Next Generation of Buildings (REDi) framework,
which ultimately results in buildings with both significantly
reduced whole-life carbon and also reduced cost (once the
overall lifetime of the building is considered). As well as
enabling more efficient and resilient designs, adopting
PBSD principles could have a major industrywide benefit
when assessing existing buildings that may not technically
comply with current code detailing requirements, but might
still have significant resistance if PBSD is followed (ISO
13822:2010). An example of such a successful application
is the restoration of Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand.
In addition to greatly assisting with the design of particu-
larly important structures, PBSD is especially helpful when
dealing with new or unusual design circumstances. Since
performance goals are designed to be quite adaptable, they
are particularly favourable for designing unique structural
systems such as advanced tall buildings, innovative stadium
structures, and so on. In addition to this, PBSD can also
assist in the implementation of new materials to the design
process. Whereas these novel building tools might not be
covered by typical prescriptive codes, they can be applied
to design objectives in a performance-based environment.
In this situation, the structural engineer can obtain test data
for these materials and then verify that the structure to be
designed can reach the outlined objectives through an ana-
lytical simulation that utilizes the new materials. The final
unique application of PBSD is that this modified approach
to structural engineering allows the focus to be placed on
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
the role of the structure in its surrounding environment.
Structural engineers involved in PBSD will be offered a
rare opportunity to take a step back and analyse how these
designed structures will affect the community. They will be
able to look at issues such as sustainability, the robustness
of a structure and how the structure works together with the
current built environment. In near future, methods and pro-
cedures to increase the adoption of PBSD are likely to better
reflect the interests of clients and regulators while elevating
the structural engineers as design experts.
13.3 Opinions of Modern Structural Engineer
While the benefits of PBSD continue to be actively discussed
within the structural engineering community, it is important
to understand the sentiments of the structural engineers who
hold the ability to practice it. Improvements to the applica-
tions of PBSD serve no relevant purpose if these methods
are not being practiced by the structural engineers, and it is
therefore of utmost importance to identify any roadblocks
in the path of implementation and work to eliminate them.
13.3.1 Those Against
While one of the largest cited benefits of PBSD is that
every uncertainty present in defining the hazards, perform-
ing the design process, and estimating the consequences is
accounted for in the design structure. However, many struc-
tural engineers believe that these uncertainties are more
adequately addressed in prescriptive designs. These con-
cerns have led many to question whether PBSD is worth the
effort, considering that under-accounting for uncertainties
could lead to concerns involving public safety and potential
exposure to litigation for any structural engineers involved.
Uncertainties are indeed accommodated to a certain extent in
prescriptive designs like (a) ‘Working Stress Design’ utilizes
factors of safety; and (b) ‘Limit State Design’ accounts for
load factors and strength reduction factors. With this being
said, PBSD allows for freedom in allocating exceedance and
probabilistic levels in the design process, and engineers are
still free to implement their preferred methods of design
when necessary. PBSD is regarded by many as a complete
departure from historic methods of design, whereas in real-
ity, it should be looked upon as a method of enhancing pre-
scriptive design so that it can still be used, but with no more
adverse restrictions. However, the issue for many is not a
matter of which method provides the most freedom, but how
much freedom is necessary to perform an adequate design.
This leads to the prominent issue with PBSD that structural
engineers do not find the added value and flexibility that are
necessary for most design processes.
13.3.2 Those In‑Favour
PBSD offer many benefits to structural engineers in the form
of increased confidence and reliability that result from the
creation of performance objectives. These objectives are the
primary goal of the design process and must be achieved
to complete the design. The verification of these objec-
tives through analytical or physical means ensures that the
designed structure will perform as intended. In addition to
this increased reliability, explicitly defined performance
targets also ensure that the structure in question will be
designed appropriately for its purpose. Once a structure is
completed in a performance-based design environment, its
efficiency is ensured since the performance goals must be
achieved to warrant a finalized design. Finally, the PBSD
eliminates limitations imposed by the prescriptive design
approaches, allowing structural engineers to pursue innova-
tive design solutions that might feature new materials and
systems. In addition to these benefits, prominent structural
engineers and research professionals have identified a variety
of additional advantages to the implementation of PBSD.
These benefits also include more consistent achievement of
desired seismic performance, lower construction costs, ulti-
mate elimination of some prescriptive code requirements,
ability to accommodate unique architectural features and the
usage of innovative structural systems and materials.
13.4 Steps Towards Successful Implementation
of PBSD
Although PBD approaches are now acceptable in most
jurisdictions, the use of PBD is something that should be
confirmed at the beginning of every project through early
conversations with the local authorities. ASCE 7 (2022) and
IBC (2020) explicitly permit the use of generic performance-
based procedures provided that they demonstrate that the
alternative design can meet the reliability target specified
in the code. This includes an allowance for innovative sys-
tems and materials, for both structural and non-structural
elements. Acceptability criteria can be found in different
international guidance. Eurocodes, and especially their
revised versions, include some guidance yet allow significant
freedom for the designer to interpret the results. ASCE 41
(2017) is nonetheless still one of the best references in terms
of acceptability criteria for both new and existing buildings,
together with the more recent ATC 58 project. Foundations
limits are included in ASCE 7 (2022). Given the greater
freedom within the process, it is even more important for
designers to be aware of analysis and knowledge limitations
as well as any potential uncertainties.
Effective implementation of PBSD across all areas of
structural engineering will require the efforts of struc-
tural engineers, the design organization in which they are
13

employed, the professional societies that represent them
and the educators that are rising the next generation. This
implementation will not be deemed successful based on the
number of designs that are completed using performance-
based methods; but on the ability of engineers to have equal
opportunity to choose between the PBSD approach or the
prescriptive approach. To achieve the optimal design envi-
ronment, the following responsibilities are required of indi-
viduals throughout the structural engineering industry.
13.4.1 Responsibilities of Structural Engineer
One key hurdle that has been cited by many is the resistance
to change exhibited by many structural engineers, when it
comes to accepting a future rooted in PBSD. This resist-
ance can stem from a variety of places, including the fear
of losing touch with long-lasting engineering standards,
concerns involving public safety and an increased potential
for exposure to legal action. While these concerns do have
their merit, they are mostly rooted in an old way of thinking,
one which has been taught to engineers in their youth and
must now evolve along with methods of engineering. First,
it is important to realize that the standards and codes that
have been developed over the decades will not simply disap-
pear. They will still serve an important role even in PBSD
approaches. Structural engineers will continue to refer to
the codes, guidelines, design examples and standards during
performance-based work, with the only difference being that
they will no longer be constrained to any particular prescrip-
tive requirement. Most developments in PBSD are rooted in
expansions of existing codes so that structural engineers are
allowed to utilize PBSD techniques under certain circum-
stances. This should also assist in demonstrating that public
safety will continue to be ensured in a PBSD environment.
Structural engineers have years of experience working on
complex design issues, and this knowledge has been stored
for future generations to build and innovate on. Just as in any
typical prescriptive design project, PBSD will also require
the assistance of fellow structural engineers and will endure
an intense series of checks, revisions, and verification.
The responsibility assigned to structural engineers is to
recognize the criticisms of PBSD, take the time to learn
how they can be overcome and share the knowledge of how
to do so with fellow professionals. As discussed earlier, not
all structures need PBSD to be efficient, sustainable, and
robust. The implementation of performance objectives is not
a requirement, but instead an opportunity for innovation.
It can be used for projects where lead engineers deem it to
be useful and from there, its usage and acceptance in the
industry will continue to grow. It is up to the structural engi-
neers to pioneer its usage and help in a new way of thinking
in which prescriptive design and PBSD can co-exist in the
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
workplace, allowing for both efficient designs and innovative
ideas to flourish.
13.4.2 Responsibilities of Design Organizations
While structural engineers practice the design of structures,
it is the design organizations that employ them and provide
the necessary resources to succeed as an engineer. Design
firms, therefore, hold an important responsibility in assist-
ing with the implementation of PBSD. One of the greatest
impediments to the participation of firms in this cause is that
they are profit-driven businesses by nature and the current
state of PBSD has many costs associated with it. Whereas,
structural engineers are well-versed and have all the neces-
sary means for a conventional prescriptive design approach
and PBSD would require additional education for structural
engineers and more time spent on learning the design pro-
cess. However, it is important to note that the extra time and
money required for a firm’s first few PBSD processes is a
one-time requirement, as experienced engineers will become
more familiar with the process. With increased usage, PBSD
will evolve to become more efficient and could even promise
to be more cost-effective than a traditional approach due to
its ability to weed out any unnecessary components of the
design process. It is therefore the responsibility of design or
engineering firms to support their engineers in pursuing the
future of structural design. To combat the universal lack of
proficiency with performance goals, it is up to engineering
firms to offer time for education and implementation of nec-
essary systems involved with PBSD. This investment could
include mandatory education courses on performance-based
design, as well as the supply of necessary building codes that
allow for the practice of PBSD. While this may add some
extra cost for the first few years of practice, the growth of
the structural engineering profession to tackle new goals and
design problems is worth the effort.
13.4.3 Responsibilities of Professional Societies
Professional engineering societies have a diverse history of
setting standards, goals, and objectives to assist their respec-
tive professions in evolving and modernizing their practices.
Therefore, structural engineering societies have the oppor-
tunity to assist in the implementation of PBSD techniques.
So far, the resolve of professional societies when it comes
to this matter has been the most prominent of all the groups
to be mentioned. For example, the Structural Engineering
Institute (SEI) managed the creation of the Task Commit-
tee on PBSD, whose report to SEI (2018) on the current
state of its implementation exists as one of the most use-
ful modern documents to characterize PBSD in the struc-
tural engineering industry. In addition to the efforts of this
SEI-sanctioned committee, the American Society of Civil
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
Engineers (ASCE) has identified PBSD standards as one of
the four areas of focus under the “ASCE Grand Challenge”
(2017). The purpose of this program is to challenge engi-
neers to rethink the possibilities of structural engineering,
and ASCE expertly identifies the performance standards as
a way to ‘dramatically improve performance while creating
more efficient costs’ and to ‘encourage innovation across
the structural engineering profession’. While structural
engineering societies have already recognized and begun
to promote many benefits to PBSD, it is important to note
that their responsibility does not end there. This is because
it will take many years, if not decades to change the design
paradigm.
13.4.4 Responsibilities of Educators
The ideas discussed in this paper have been primarily rooted
in the modern engineering workplace. Previously mentioned
responsibilities were established for the structural engineers
themselves, the design firms to which they are employed,
and the engineering societies to which they belong. How-
ever, the future generation of structural engineers, those who
will be leading the industry in just a few decades do not yet
belong to any of these groups. The young engineers of today
are earning their degrees and performing research at univer-
sities. It is up to the educators (i.e. the teachers, lecturers,
and professors) to provide these students with the knowledge
they require to succeed in the structural engineering domain.
As discussed, one of the primary issues facing the imple-
mentation of PBSD in the workplace is the current lack of
knowledge among structural engineers, and the unwilling-
ness of many design firms to implement educational pro-
grams focusing on the topic. Structural engineers typically
acquire knowledge and skillsets through a specialist ‘Mas-
ter's Degree’ programme or substantial training and experi-
ence in PBSD applications, rather than through a conven-
tional undergraduate ‘Civil Engineering’ course. To assist
with these issues, educators could integrate PBSD princi-
pals into their current undergraduate programmes, so that
students will graduate with an established familiarity with
the topic. The nature of PBSD is more challenging than
prescriptive approaches and would serve as an excellent
educational tool. Instead of having students create sample
designs by following prescriptive code standards, perhaps
they could be tasked with generating a set of performance
goals and designing a structure to achieve those goals. These
designs could even be compared against similar prescrip-
tive designs to allow students to comprehend the advantages
of each approach. By establishing this critical link between
prescriptive and PBSD techniques in the students’ minds,
educators will be defeating a major roadblock to the suc-
cessful implementation of PBSD in the structural engineer-
ing industry. As structural design technologies continue to
advance, it is important to ensure that the students of today
have the proper tools and knowledge to continue to innovate
and take on the problems of tomorrow.
13.4.5 Responsibilities of Stakeholders
In addition to these four essential constituent groups (i.e.
structural engineers, design firms, professional societies, and
educators), building owners and regulators also serve as two
essential stakeholders in the effort to effectively implement
PBSD. Currently, many building owners looking to construct
new developments or improve their existing structures might
not have adequate knowledge of PBSD or the benefits its
usage could provide for their construction ambitions. With
public education programs geared towards these individuals,
building owners could advocate for performance objectives
to be set for their structures. As discussed earlier, there are
many occasions in which building owners could benefit from
the inclusion of performance goals, including increasing fac-
tors of safety, utilizing innovative materials, and construc-
tion methods and improving the role of their structures in the
surrounding community. Regulators also serve an important
role, as they are the parties who develop building codes that
need to allow PBSD to be practised. While many building
codes are already evolving to include language that permits
the practice of performance design methods, this evolution
must continue its current trend well into the future.
As discussed, every stakeholder serves an important role
in advancing the structural engineering profession towards
PBSD. It is the structural engineers themselves that serve the
most important role and will lead the ensuing effort. All of
these groups exist because of structural engineers; as design
firms employ them, professional societies are made up of
them, educators teach them, building owners require their
services and regulators provide guidelines for them. Struc-
tural engineers must buy into the usage of PBSD to inspire
a reaction from each of these groups. Once structural engi-
neers begin to show interest in and implement performance
methods more prominently in their work, design firms will
begin to show more support, educators will implement per-
formance methods more prominently in education, and the
structural engineering profession as a whole will begin to
advance towards a future rooted in performance design.
14 Concluding Remarks
This study intends to serve as a starting point; a culmina-
tion of information including the challenges, the payoffs,
and the necessary steps to be taken if performance-based
seismic design is to become a prominent part of structural
earthquake engineering. The following are the conclusions
of the present study:
13

• Structural engineers work in a design environment where
they have simple access to information, can collect and
analyse data, and use robust and trustworthy analysis
and design software. Prescriptive rules and standards
have hindered them from fully using these advantages,
as prescriptive requirements have been expanding at an
unsustainable rate, restricting innovation. Engineers are
pressed to meet many demands on structural designs,
including safety, economy, serviceability, sustainabil-
ity, robustness, and unrealistic timeline constraints, and
thus are forced to pursue a prescriptive path to a solution
that frequently fails to meet expectations. As a result,
communities aren’t getting the most out of their limited
time, money, energy, and material resources. Rather,
they obtain designs bound by general prescriptive norms,
which have a low level of reliability because design by
prescription does not quantify or directly evaluate perfor-
mance. For the above-cited reasons, structural engineers,
and the communities they serve can no longer afford to
be limited by prescriptive design. It is time to implement
change and grow the profession of structural engineering
to the modern and innovative status of present-day design
demand.
• The large potential for growth in the structural engineer-
ing profession has been made abundantly clear in recent
years. As building designs continue to grow in height and
overall quantity, more trained structural engineers with
better tools are needed to analyse and ensure the safety
and performance of such buildings. Performance-based
design is the most developing, challenging, and demand-
ing field in earthquake engineering and offers numer-
ous advantages compared to traditional design methods.
This is a very promising tool for the earthquake-resistant
design of structures and could very well be the key to
many more years of innovation in the structural engi-
neering industry. Design approaches available for PBSD
should satisfy the following criteria: (i) it should consider
all important performance parameters, i.e. drift, rotation,
strain, and curvature; (ii) the method should suggest
guidelines for initial member size proportioning, and (iii)
method should be simple so that it can be easily used in
design offices.
• The PBSD methodology is a boon to the earthquake engi-
neering background. It is a design practice whose main
focus is to design a reliable structure based on perfor-
mance objectives which direct towards achieving target
performance for design earthquake. The PBSD procedure
gives a realistic and reliable assessment of damage indi-
ces and loss of strength in members with respect to time.
The first step of PBSD is to fix performance objectives
depending on the owner, designer or building official.
After assessing the location and seismic intensity record
of the site, the performance level for the structure is
13
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
decided considering the seismic hazard and performance
objectives. After performance objectives and perfor-
mance level, the goals are decided in which criteria like
strength and serviceability are considered with limited
ductility which will reduce the probability of damage to
an acceptable level and allows a proper load combination
with respect to maximum design Earthquake to ensure
the structural performance. Based on the objectives and
goals, an assessment is made whether the structure is
designed according to the objective and goals set by the
owner, and/or engineer. If structure performance meets
the objective, then the design is ready for actual construc-
tion, but if desired performance is not achieved, then the
design is revised or the objective is modified or altered
until the desired performance is met. By following these
steps, the designer can proceed with a higher level of
confidence in designing structures beyond elastic limits
and getting a higher level of performance from design
codes.
• Performance levels are based on ground motion level,
damage state, displacement and drift. These seemed to
be oversimplified, but the number of cycles, duration,
acceleration, and transfer of forces on structural member
and their behaviour or response to seismic forces, which
reduces stiffness in members and their failure modes
influences the performance levels. Sometimes displace-
ment-based design is used in terms of performance-based
design due to the major significance of displacement.
In PBSD, out of different methods, viz. capacity spec-
trum method, N2 method and displacement-based design
method, anyone can be used for finding target perfor-
mance in the form of displacement, drifts and damage
levels.
• The PBSD is a reliable methodology for the design of a
new building or the assessment of an existing one that
significantly reveals better results in comparison to con-
ventional code-addressed design procedures. It consid-
ers both, i.e. material as well as geometric non-linearity.
It is performed using target displacements to determine
the damage level. In PBD, the designer works closely
with the consultant to determine structural performance
objectives for serviceability and strength. The structure
is then designed or assessed to make sure the predeter-
mined objectives are accomplished. It does not use ‘R’
or Behaviour factor in the design. It provides an ease to
identify the damage in vulnerable members which can be
modified by retrofitting.
• Performance-based design is already permitted by
many modern building codes, including the Interna-
tional Building Code (IBC 2020) and the International
Code Council Performance Code (ICCPC 2021). Most
derived building codes are based on IBC, for which the
official language “includes alternative means and meth-
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transactions of Civil Engineering
ods to allow the use of materials, design techniques, or
construction methods not specifically prescribed by the
code.” Likewise, ICCPC (2021) “permits innovation and
deviations from the prescriptive criteria while maintain-
ing the intent of the building code”. These parameters
within modern building codes have allowed for the cur-
rent state of PBSD and demonstrate the true potential for
growth that it holds. As far as building codes go, there
are no significant restrictions on PBSD as long as certain
safety parameters are still being met. The purpose of the
code/standard is “to provide appropriate health, safety,
welfare, social and economic value while promoting
innovative, flexible and responsive solutions that opti-
mize the expenditure and consumption of resources”. The
language of these codes is also evolving over the years,
with the release of ASCE 7 (2016) allowing for “the
removal of some of the extra conservatism built into the
current building code” and offering structural engineers
the ability to further implement new performance-based
methods. In allowing the early adoption of PBSD, these
building codes are paving the way for a more modern
approach to structural engineering. Many standards and
guidelines discussed in the present study assist in the
implementation of PBSD. These documents allow for the
practice of PBSD and should serve as a starting point for
structural engineers looking to begin implementing these
practices into their work.
• PBD is a process that demands more from structural
engineers. It encourages continuous research and devel-
opment and helps advance the engineering profession,
providing it with an opportunity to reinstate its creative
role within the industry. The focus shifts from navigating
code provisions, with more or less ability, to identify-
ing desired performance targets and embracing creative
and innovative solutions that could be best suited to each
specific design. The one-shoe-fits-all approach should
be reconsidered. PBD approaches are expected to ben-
efit from improved computational power and software
advances to extend and normalize the use of advanced
structural analysis beyond critical scenarios. This is also
the case as clients and society are educated in the frame-
work and start demanding it to see more value added to
their designs compared with generic prescriptive designs.
Performance-based approaches have the potential to lead
to far more economical and/or reliable designs, resulting
in a reduction in a building’s overall whole-life carbon.
• The implementation of PBSD will take time and
resources to execute correctly. Adoption of performance
standards will be gradual, but as history has shown,
structural engineers will continue to become more and
more comfortable with these new methods of design.
PBSD presents the opportunity to elevate the role of
structural engineers to a point where they are essential
members of the community. This role must include direct
communication with the building users as well as greater
power to determine the overall building configuration and
framing systems and oversight role concerning the design
and installation of non-structural building components.
Performance-based design can serve many unique pur-
poses and solve a variety of problems. With the right
objectives set in the design process, the future of PBSD
holds infinite possibilities.
Acknowledgements The work presented in this manuscript was
conducted jointly in collaboration with the International Institute of
Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) and the Indian Institute of
Technology Ropar (IIT Ropar). The support received from both institu-
tions for the smooth conduct of this work is gratefully acknowledged.
We would like to express our sincere thanks to anonymous reviewers
and all those individuals who participated in discussions related to the
subject dealt in the present study and motivated us to write this manu-
script. In addition, we would like to express our heart-felt gratitude to
our mentor Prof. Yogendra Singh, Dept. of Earthquake Engineering,
IIT Roorkee for his constant guidance and support.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors confirm that there are no known con-
flicts of interest associated with this publication, and there has been no
significant financial support for this work that could have influenced
its outcome.
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