A Risk-based Evaluation of Direct Displacement-based Design

Recent seismic design approaches developed under the umbrella of performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) pursue pre-defined performance objectives in terms of structural response, economic losses, or casualties. The earlier PBEE methods were mainly concerned with the deterministic evaluation of performance at a single ground motion intensity level. This premise, however, provides little insight into the long-term risk-based performance of a structure, and limits the ability to make informed design decisions. Given the inherent sources of uncertainty in all aspects of seismic design, probability theory needs to be employed to enable reliable design solutions. However, applying a risk-oriented design approach is not currently feasible for most practitioners, making it essential to understand how the current deterministic applications of these intensity-based PBEE approaches perform in terms of risk. Specifically, the aim is to investigate the capability of the direct displacement-based design (DDBD) method in producing reliable, risk-consistent designs. A probabilistic PBEE assessment framework is applied as the benchmark to determine the risk of exceeding performance objectives for multiple DDBD-based reinforced-concrete-wall and dual reinforced-concrete-wall/steel-frame buildings located at three different sites. The significant variation in the achieved risk estimates for the buildings considered questions the ability of DDBD—or any other intensity-based design method that does not account for uncertainty—to offer risk consistency.