An Evaluation of Two-Level Seismic Design Procedure

The two-level design philosophy is recognized by modern seismic codes. When this philosophy is implemented in the code, the intensities of the two design earthquakes, the structural performance criteria, explicit versus implicit design approach, and the effectiveness to achieve the performance criteria vary considerably from one code to the other. For the ultimate limit state, the UBC was compared with seismic codes of Canada, Japan, and Eurocode. It was found that a trend to deviate from the UBC approach of using a single seismic force reduction factor (i.e., R _w ) is apparent. Instead, an approach using a compound force reduction factor which considers the contribution of structural ductility and structural overstrength is preferred. For the serviceability limit state, a comparison of the level of design earthquakes and performance criteria of the UBC, Tri-Services Manual, and the Japanese code indicates that the UBC produces the most flexible structure, and that UBC does not control structural damage. It is suggested that the UBC adopts an explicit serviceability design procedure.