ASCE/SEI 41 Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Buildings: Benchmarking ASCE/SEI 41 Nonlinear Dynamic Procedures with Empirical Damage Observations

Published

May 19, 2023

Author(s)

Dustin Cook, Andrew Sen, Tarbin Basnet, Hamid Koodiani, Ariel Creagh, Abbie Liel, Russell Berkowitz, Wassim Ghannoum, Ayse Hortacsu, Insung Kim, Dawn Lehman, Laura Lowes, Adolfo Matamoros, Farzad Naeim, Siamak Sattar, Rob Smith

Abstract

ASCE/SEI 41 is the consensus U.S. standard for the seismic evaluation and retrofit of existing buildings. Although the performance-based engineering standard is based on decades of research and the result of significant vetting by ASCE and other committees, uncertainty remains about how well it captures the seismic response of real building systems. This paper examines six buildings, including four reinforced concrete buildings damaged in earthquakes and two experimental structures tested and damaged on shake tables, to compare the measured response and observed damage to simulated outcomes produced following ASCE/SEI 41's nonlinear dynamic procedure. The results show that the simulations are generally able to capture the story mechanism, and predicted peak transient story drift demands at the critical story (in most cases within +/- 20% of the measured values). However, drifts at non-critical stories and floor accelerations at all stories show greater error relative to the measured responses. At the component level, the simulations in most cases correctly identify the location(s) of the critical component(s) and the type of failure (e.g., flexure vs. shear). However, the extent of the damage is overestimated in some cases. These results form the basis for recommendations for column, beam, and wall modeling procedures that can be used to improve ASCE/SEI 41.

Citation

Earthquake Spectra

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Performance Based Earthquake Engineering, ASCE/SEI 41, Existing Buildings, Retrofit, Collapse Prevention, Instrumented Buildings, Observed Earthquake Damage

Citation

Cook, D. , Sen, A. , Basnet, T. , Koodiani, H. , Creagh, A. , LIEL, A. , Berkowitz, R. , Ghannoum, W. , Hortacsu, A. , Kim, I. , Lehman, D. , Lowes, L. , Matamoros, A. , Naeim, F. , Sattar, S. and Smith, R. (2023), ASCE/SEI 41 Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Buildings: Benchmarking ASCE/SEI 41 Nonlinear Dynamic Procedures with Empirical Damage Observations, Earthquake Spectra, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=933227 (Accessed October 9, 2025)