TARGET SEISMIC PERFORMANCE LEVELS IN STRUCTURAL DESIGN FOR BUILDINGS

摘要

Primary objectives of the design of building structures are to 1) protect human life, 2) conserve properties and 3) maintain functions. We call the performances to achieve these design objectives as 1)safety, 2)reparability, and 3)serviceability, respectively. The performances and levels appropriate for a building structure are determined not only in terms of structural technologies but by the demands of its owners, users, and society. To examine the issues related to the target performance levels in structural design, the Target Level Subcommittee was organized in the 3-year Japanese Comprehensive Research and Development Project on "Development of a New Engineering Framework for Building Structures" which was launched in fiscal 1995. This paper describes a framework for determining levels, which is a summary of the fundamental ideas concerning target levels, and various factors that may be used for deciding levels and those used in actual evaluations.