Performance Based Design of a New Hospital Building in California, U.S

Performance based seismic design (PBSD) is an alternative to code based approaches to design or evaluation of structures that fail to yield a more direct relationship between a seismic event and the corresponding structural performance of a building; this generally leads to over-conservatism. This paper presents a case study on the alternative procedures used in the performance based design of a new ten story moment frame hospital building in California, U.S. A detailed three-dimensional model of the structure created using Perform 3-D explicitly represents the lateral force resisting system’s (LFRS) geometry and stiffness, both linear and non-linear, as well as the spatial distribution of mass. The building was analyzed and designed using a 3-D nonlinear response history analysis (NLRHA) procedure based on ASCE 41 with a suite of seven code based ground motion records. A comparison with the results of a nonlinear static pushover procedure (NSP) is presented.