NEHRP Guidelines and Commentary for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Shapiro ◽  
Christopher Rojahn ◽  
Lawrence D. Reaveley ◽  
James R. Smith ◽  
Ugo Morelli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Seismic Design ◽  
Building Material ◽  
The United States ◽  
Seismic Resistance ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Seismic Rehabilitation ◽  
Professional Practitioners ◽  
New Buildings

Based on the conclusion that the primary barrier to widespread seismic rehabilitation of buildings in the United States was the lack of a consensus-backed, nationally applicable, professionally accepted rehabilitation standard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency supported the development of the NEHRP Guidelines and Commentary for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings (FEMA 273 and 274). A six-year effort by a team of experienced professional practitioners and university researchers who were motivated to produce a standard that specifically addressed the differences in designing for seismic resistance in new buildings, as opposed to existing buildings, resulted in the NEHRP Guidelines and Commentary for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings. These NEHRP Guidelines will provide the tools for design professionals of varying expertise in seismic design to design economical and appropriate seismic rehabilitation for buildings of essentially any size, commonly used building material and configuration.

Achieving Agility in Disaster Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
John R. Harrald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organizational Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Professional Practitioners

A significant body of social science research has concluded that improvisation in distributed, collaborative, open systems is the key to success in responding to and recovering from extreme events. The evolution of emergency management in the United States since the 9-11 attacks has emphasized the development of doctrine, process, and structure. In earlier work I concluded that both the agility desired by the social sciences and the discipline created by the professional practitioners are essential. This article explores how agility can be developed within a disciplined system and concludes that the keys are the development of outcome based goals, adaptive leadership, and technology that supports collaborative sense-making and decision making in open, organizational systems.

scholarly journals Recent developments in earthquake hazard mitigation in the United States

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
W. T. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seismic Design ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Earthquake Hazard ◽  
The United States ◽  
Northridge Earthquake ◽  
Seismic Rehabilitation ◽  
Seismic Loss ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Performance Based Seismic Design

Recent research and development projects in the United States that could significantly affect the future mitigation of seismic risk are summarized. Specific activities described include a report to the governor of California on the Northridge earthquake, the ongoing effort to develop a new national seismic zoning map, development of a comprehensive regional seismic loss estimation methodology, and development of guidelines for the seismic rehabilitation of buildings. Interest in performance based seismic design is discussed and several new large-scale mitigation programs are described.

Implementing the performance-based seismic design for new reinforced concrete structures: Comparison among ASCE/SEI 41, TBI, and LATBSDC

2021 ◽  
pp. 875529302098196
Author(s):  
Siamak Sattar ◽  
Anne Hulsey ◽  
Garrett Hagen ◽  
Farzad Naeim ◽  
Steven McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Reinforced Concrete ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Seismic Design ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Seismic Analysis ◽  
Tall Buildings ◽  
The United States ◽  
Analysis And Design ◽  
Performance Based Seismic Design ◽  
New Buildings

Performance-based seismic design (PBSD) has been recognized as a framework for designing new buildings in the United States in recent years. Various guidelines and standards have been developed to codify and document the implementation of PBSD, including “ Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit of Existing Buildings” (ASCE 41-17), the Tall Buildings Initiative’s Guidelines for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings (TBI Guidelines), and the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council’s An Alternative Procedure for Seismic Analysis and Design of Tall Buildings Located in the Los Angeles Region (LATBSDC Procedure). The main goal of these documents is to regularize the implementation of PBSD for practicing engineers. These documents were developed independently with experts from varying backgrounds and organizations and consequently have differences in several degrees from basic intent to the details of the implementation. As the main objective of PBSD is to ensure a specified building performance, these documents would be expected to provide similar recommendations for achieving a given performance objective for new buildings. This article provides a detailed comparison among each document’s implementation of PBSD for reinforced concrete buildings, with the goal of highlighting the differences among these documents and identifying provisions in which the designed building may achieve varied performance depending on the chosen standard/guideline. This comparison can help committees developing these documents to be aware of their differences, investigate the sources of their divergence, and bring these documents closer to common ground in future cycles.

scholarly journals Emergency Management Missing from the Pandemic?

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 149-150
Author(s):  
Attila J. Hertelendy, PhD ◽  
William L. Waugh, Jr., PhD
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Protective Equipment ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
White House ◽  
Pandemic Response

The change in presidential administrations in the United States promises new approaches to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The first year of the pandemic response in the United States has been characterized by a lack of national leadership. Moreover, the message from the White House Coronavirus Task Force has been muddled at best. There have been great inconsistencies in how the States have chosen to address spreading infections and increased stress on individual Americans who are trying to protect themselves and their families. The same pattern can be found with the distribution of vaccines and management of vaccinations. Politics has often conflicted with public health concerns. The States have been left to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to medical personnel and first responders and to formulate their own guidance for protective measures.

Seismic Design of Highway Bridges in the United States

1980 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27
Author(s):  
Roland L. Sharpe ◽  
Ronald L. Mayes ◽  
James D. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seismic Design ◽  
Highway Bridges ◽  
The United States

Seismic Design Requirements for Regions of Moderate Seismicity

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy J. P. Nordenson ◽  
Glenn R. Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seismic Design ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Seismic Codes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Moderate Seismicity ◽  
High Seismicity

The need for earthquake-resistant construction in areas of low-to-moderate seismicity has been recognized through the adoption of code requirements in the United States and other countries only in the past quarter century. This is largely a result of improved assessment of seismic hazard and examples of recent moderate earthquakes in regions of both moderate and high seismicity, including the San Fernando (1971), Mexico City (1985), Loma Prieta (1989), and Northridge (1994) earthquakes. In addition, improved understanding and estimates of older earthquakes in the eastern United States such as Cape Ann (1755), La Malbaie, Quebec (1925), and Ossippe, New Hampshire (1940), as well as monitoring of micro-activity in source areas such as La Malbaie, have increased awareness of the earthquake potential in areas of low-to-moderate seismicity. Both the hazard and the risk in moderate seismic zones (MSZs) differ in scale and kind from those of the zones of high seismicity. Earthquake hazards mitigation measures for new and existing construction need to be adapted from those prevailing in regions of high seismicity in recognition of these differences. Site effects are likely to dominate the damage patterns from earthquakes, with some sites suffering no damage not far from others, on soft soil, suffering near collapse. A number of new seismic codes have been developed in the past quarter century in response to these differences, including the New York City (1995) and the Massachusetts State (1975) seismic codes. Over the same period, the national model building codes that apply to most areas of low-to-moderate seismicity in the United States, the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) Code and the Southern Standard Building Code (SSBC), have incorporated up-to-date seismic provisions. The seismic provisions of these codes have been largely inspired by the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) recommendations. Through adoption of these national codes, many state and local authorities in areas of low-to-moderate seismicity now have reasonably comprehensive seismic design provisions. This paper will review the background and history leading up to the MSZ codes, discuss their content, and propose directions for future development.

Performance Goal-Based Seismic Design Standards for Critical Facilities in the United States

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quazi A. Hossain
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seismic Design ◽  
Functional Performance ◽  
Design Method ◽  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Performance Goals ◽  
United States Department ◽  
Active Member ◽  
Performance Goal

For more than the last fifteen years, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) has been using a probabilistic performance goal-based seismic design method for structures, systems, and components (SSCs) in its nuclear and hazardous facilities. Using a graded approach, the method permits the selection of probabilistic performance goals or acceptable failure rates for SSCs based on the severity level of SSC failure consequences. The method uses a site-specific probabilistic seismic hazard curve as the basic seismic input motion definition, but utilizes the existing national industry consensus design codes for specifying load combination and design acceptance criteria in such a way that the target probabilistic performance goals are met. Recently, the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have undertaken the development of a number of national consensus standards that will utilize the performance goal-based seismic design experience base in the DOE complex. These standards are presently in various stages of development, some nearing completion. Once completed, these standards are likely to be adopted by various agencies and organizations in the United States. In addition to the graded approach of DOE’s method, these standards incorporate design provisions that permit seismic design of SSCs to several levels of functional performance. This flexibility of choosing a functional performance level in the design process results in an optimum, but risk-consistent design. The paper will provide an outline of two of these standards-in-progress and will present the author’s understanding of their basic philosophies and technical bases. Even though the author is an active member of the development committees for these two standards, the technical opinions expressed in this paper are author’s own, and does not reflect the views of any of the committees or the views of the organizations with which any member of the committees are affiliated.

scholarly journals Part of the Solution

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (01) ◽  
pp. 46-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Thilmany
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Rapid Prototyping ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Construction Methods ◽  
Emergency Housing ◽  
Low Cost Housing ◽  
New Buildings

This article presents numerous examples of rapid prototyping applications in the United States and explains its benefits. Constructing housing via rapid prototyping methods is expected to save time and money and bring affordable and environmentally friendly housing to people in need. Using an additive-manufacturing technique for constructing new buildings could provide emergency housing for victims of disasters. The technique could also be used for affordable housing for those in the United States or in third-world countries, or for creating new housing styles that bring curved, organic designs rather than straight surfaces to the homes. In industrialized countries, automating the manufacturing of products such as shoes or cars can cut costs about 25% as compared to manual construction methods. Makers of rapid prototyping technology are using CT scans to create exact-fit implants for craniofacial and maxillofacial operations. The rapid prototyping process is also being matched with humanitarian efforts in another project, this one situated in war-torn Iraq. Analysts suggest that custom medical devices and low-cost housing—affordable for everyone and quick to manufacture accurately—will help grow rapid prototyping into a robust industry.

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