A Functional Recovery Qualification Procedure for Seismic Force-Resisting Systems

Synopsis

The development of prescriptive seismic design standards for functional recovery in new buildings is critical to advancing the adoption of recovery-based design and supporting community resilience. Central to this effort is the creation of a standardized procedure to qualify seismic force-resisting systems for functional recovery performance. This presentation will begin with a brief overview of the structural and nonstructural functional recovery design requirements contained in Appendix A of the forthcoming 2026 NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions. It will then introduce the qualification procedure for seismic force-resisting systems, which is based on safety-critical structural damage, i.e., damage that must be repaired before a building can be safely reoccupied. This procedure establishes the functional recovery allowable drift limit (Δ_afr), the functional recovery response modification coefficient (R_fr), and the functional recovery structural ductility reduction factor (R_µfr). An illustrative example will demonstrate the implementation of the qualification procedure currently being applied to a broad range of seismic systems in preparation for the release of the functional recovery design requirements in the 2026 NEHRP Provisions.

About the speaker

Carlos Molina Hutt is an Associate Professor of Structural and Earthquake Engineering at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he leads the Engineering for Seismic Resilience Research Lab (www.esrlab.org). His work focuses on the development of methodological approaches to assess seismic risk in buildings and its implications on urban resilience, and on the translation of this knowledge into tools and information for use by practicing engineers, seismic planners, and policy makers. Carlos is a registered professional engineer in the province of British Columbia in Canada, in the state of California in the US, and is also a chartered engineer in the UK. In 2019, he received the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Shah Family Innovation Prize. In 2022, he was invited by the US Building Seismic Safety Council, via the Provisions Update Committee, to become a member of the Functional Recovery Task Committee, which has been tasked with developing design procedures for buildings to achieve different functional recovery targets for use in the next generation of building codes. He continues this effort as a member of the Seismic Subcommittee in the ASCE 7-28 code revision cycle.

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Further information

This event is organised by the Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics (SECED), and chaired by Fabio Freddi (UCL). The event is open to all and is free to attend.