Chapter 5: Seismic Assessment

The first step in developing any solution is to properly diagnose the problem. Understanding structural vulnerabilities and deficiencies as part of a seismic assessment is critical to forming a solid foundation for subsequent retrofit design. This chapter summarises the broad topic of seismic assessment including the levels of assessment, the knowledge of the building, key principles of seismic assessments, the different qualitative and quantitative structural analysis methods, and geotechnical consideration in assessment. An extended coverage of non-linear pushover analysis is provided as this approach forms the basis of the seismic retrofit design framework used in the rest of the book.