Displacement-based seismic assessment of existing reinforced concrete buildings

Abstract

Seismic assessment of existing reinforced concrete frame and shear wall buildings is discussed. Building on an earlier preliminary assessment procedure incorporating aspects of capacity design into a systems approach for assessment, suggestions are made towards a displacement-based, rather than forced-based approach to determining available capacity. Based on results from recent experimental programs, procedures are proposed for assessing member strength including column and beam-column joint shear strength, that result in less conservative estimates of performance than would result from application of existing code rules.