Category Archives: Projects

As part of the development of performance based earthquake engineering, it has been determined that an important parameter in conducting a set of response history analyses is record-to-record variability. Record-to-Record Variability (RTR) is defined in FEMA P695 (FEMA 2010) as the variation in response of a structure under multiple input ground motions that are scaled to a consistent ground motion intensity. The ATC 63 methodology summarized in FEMA P695 accounts for RTR variability by the number of ground motions, the types of ground motions, the scaling procedure, and a fixed value for the standard deviation of the lognormal collapse probability distribution used therein. However, the source of RTR variability is not analyzed. Continue reading →

Thin-walled cold-formed steel building systems are becoming an increasingly competitive multi-story construction solution when compared to more traditional hot-rolled steel and timber framing.  However, our understanding of the behavior of cold-formed structures subjected to earthquake loading is lacking.  Although shear … Continue reading →