PEER Reports

PEER Reports

Modeling and Acceptance Criteria for Seismic Design and Analysis of Tall Buildings, PEER Report 2010-111

2010

In October 2006, the Applied Technology Council (ATC) began work on a contract assisting the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) in developing guidelines for the seismic design of tall buildings as part of the PEER Tall Buildings Initiative. The purpose of this work was to prepare recommendations for modeling the behavior of tall building structural systems and acceptance values for use in seismic design. Shortly thereafter, ATC secured additional funding on behalf of PEER from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), through the Building Seismic Safety Council (...

Guidelines for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings, Version 2.03, PEER Report 2017-06

Ron Hamburger
Jack Moehle
Jack Baker
Jonathan Bray
C.B. Crouse
Greg Deierlein
John Hooper
Marshall Lew
Joe Maffei
Stephen Mahin
James Malley
Farzad Naeim
Jonathan Stewart
John Wallace
2017

These Seismic Design Guidelines for Tall Buildings present a recommended alternative to the prescriptive procedures for seismic design of buildings contained in the ASCE 7 standard and the International Building Code (IBC) . The intended audience includes structural engineers and building officials engaged in seismic design and review of tall buildings. Properly executed, these Guidelines are intended to result in buildings that are capable of reliably achieving the seismic performance objectives intended by ASCE 7, and in some aspects, and where...

“R” Package for Computation of Earthquake Ground-Motion Response Spectra, PEER Report 2017-09

Pengfei Wang
Jonathan P. Stewart
Yousef Bozorgnia
David M. Boore
Tadahiro Kishida
2017

Earthquake ground motions are typically recorded with one vertical and two horizontal components. It has become standard practice to represent the horizontal component of ground shaking in a manner that recognizes a range of amplitudes with changing azimuths. These variable amplitudes can be generically denoted RotDxx, where xx indicates the percentile of the horizontal amplitude range. RotDxx representations of ground motion are used with amplitude parameters (peak acceleration and velocity) as well as response spectral ordinates for a range of oscillator periods. The use of RotDxx ground...

Preliminary Studies on the Dynamic Response of a Seismically Isolated Prototype Gen-IV Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (PGSFR), PEER Report 2017-11

Benshun Shao
Andreas Schellenberg
Matthew Schoettler
Stephen A. Mahin
2017

The KEPCO Engineering and Construction Company, Inc. (KEPCO E&C) is developing a Prototype Gen-IV Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (PGSFR). Preliminary evaluations of the behavior of the isolated PGSFR when subjected to seismic and aircraft impact loading conditions were conducted to support design efforts by KEPCO E&C. Results and key findings of these analyses are as follows: (i) because isolator deformations are typically quite small for the considered seismic excitation levels, the benefit of seismic isolation could be enhanced with revised isolator designs that reduce the apparent...

Experimental Investigation of the Behavior of Vintage and Retrofit Concentrically Braced Steel Frames under Cyclic Loading, PEER Report 2017-12

Barbara G. Simpson
Stephen A. Mahin
Jiun-Wei Lai
2017

The parallel evolution of seismic design provisions and braced-frame research has led to inconsistencies between the design and construction of braced frames and the development of modern seismic design codes and now-typical detailing requirements. Since literature on concentrically braced frames (CBFs) spans over several decades, existing older or vintage concentrically braced frames–especially those designed prior 1988–may be prone to a number of deficiencies that are now limited in new CBFs due to contemporary seismic design requirements.

The number and range of these...

Report of the Eighth Planning Meeting of NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Research on Earthquake Engineering, PEER Report 2011-101

Convened by the Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center (NIED), NEES Consortium, Inc.
2011

Following an agreement between the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the First Planning Meeting for NEES/E-Defense Collaboration on Earthquake Engineering Research was held in 2004. This meeting laid the groundwork for a joint research program related to improving understanding of seismic effects and thereby reducing the seismic vulnerability of buildings and civil infrastructural systems. The emphasis of the program is to conduct experimental research using the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for...

Seismic Risk Management in Urban Areas, PEER Report 2011-07

Proceedings of a U.S.-Iran-Turkey Seismic Workshop December 14-16, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey
2011

The U.S.-Iran-Turkey seismic workshop was held on December 14-16, 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey. The workshop was supported by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Bogazici University−Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Turkey; Sharif University of Technology, Iran; and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California Berkeley, USA. The theme of this workshop was Seismic Risk Management in Urban Areas. This report contains the collection of papers presented at the 2010 seismic workshop.

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Case Studies of the Seismic Performance of Tall Buildings Designed by Alternative Means, PEER Report 2011-05

Jack Moehle
Yousef Bozorgnia
Nirmal Jayaram
Pierson Jones
Mohsen Rahnama
Nilesh Shome
Zeynep Tuna
John Wallace
Tony Yang
Farzin Zareian
2011

This report was completed to fulfill the final reporting requirements to the California Seismic Safety Commission under Contract No. SSC-2007-16 and California Emergency Management Agency under Contract No. FEMA-1628-DR-CA, OES-0005. These contracts provided financial support to conduct tall buildings case studies for testing the Performance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines for Tall Buildings developed under the Tall Buildings Initiative of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. In addition to California Seismic Safety...

Urban Earthquake Engineering, PEER Report 2013-26

Proceedings of the U.S.-Iran Seismic Workshop
2013

The 4th U.S.-Iran Seismic Workshop was held on December 18-20, 2012 in Tehran, Iran. The workshop was supported by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Sharif University of Technology, Iran, and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, USA. The theme of the workshop was Urban Earthquake Engineering. This report contains the collection of papers presented at the 2012 seismic workshop.

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Structural Response and Cost Characterization of Bridge Construction Using Seismic Performance Enhancement Strategies, PEER Report 2010-01

Ady Aviram
Bozidar Stojadinovic
Gustavo J. Parra-Montesinos
Kevin R. Mackie
2010

The improved seismic performance and cost-effectiveness of two innovative performance enhancement technologies in typical reinforced concrete bridge construction in California were assessed in analytical and experimental studies. The technologies considered were lead rubber bearing isolators underneath the superstructure and fiber-reinforced concrete for the construction of bridge columns.

Pushover and time history analyses were carried out for the different bridge systems. The analytical model of the fiber-reinforced concrete bridge was calibrated based on bidirectional cyclic...