Developing innovative methods for performance driven design and health monitoring of structures

传统的建筑规范被认为是规范性的，因为它们根据特定的材料和方法而不是性能标准来指定设计解决方案和施工要求。因此，设计过程变得高度规范和复杂。基于性能的设计（PBD）格式已经发展成为当前实践的替代方案。PBD预计将提供一个更灵活的设计框架，以确保足够的安全性以及所需的性能，并通过允许应用任何可接受和可验证的解决方案来实现给定的性能水平，从而促进设计创新。《加拿大国家建筑法规》（2005年）在这方面取得了一些进展。然而，我们仍未就楼宇的可持续发展制订完整的架构。建议的研究重点是基于性能的抗震设计（PBSD）的建筑物。PBSD通常根据特定地震危险等级下的位移和损坏来定义目标性能。虽然在最近的过去已经进行了大量的研究PBSD，一些问题，如，一个强大的机制，实现PBSD在当前的建筑规范的约束下，可靠和简化的方法PBSD和建筑物的抗震性能评估，仍然没有得到解决。拟议的研究将解决这些问题，制定简化和实用的方法，性能驱动的抗震设计的规则和不规则的建筑物。还将开发用于多层次地震危险（如震后火灾）的类似方法。除了新建筑的设计，本文开发的方法可以潜在地用于现有建筑的基于性能的抗震升级。对新结构和现有结构的业绩监测是对方案拟订和发展的另一个重要补充。为此，将开发使用结构健康监测技术进行性能评估的新方法。在拟议的研究中有很大的创新潜力，旨在提高结构设计和性能监测/评估的基础知识，并生产高性能，更安全，可持续/耐用的民用基础设施。

Traditional building codes are said to be prescriptive as they specify the design solutions and construction requirements according to particular materials and methods, rather than to performance criteria. Consequently, the design process becomes highly regulated and complex. Performance Based Design (PBD) format has been evolving as an alternative to the current practice. PBD is expected to offer a more flexible framework for design to ensure adequate safety as well as desired performance, and foster innovation in design by allowing the application of any acceptable and verifiable solution to achieve a given level of performance. The National Building Code of Canada (2005) has made some progress in that direction. However, the full framework for PBD of buildings is not yet available. The proposed research focuses on the performance-based seismic design (PBSD) of buildings. PBSD generally defines the target performance in terms of displacement and damage under specified levels of seismic hazard. While much research has been carried out in the recent past on PBSD, a number of issues, such as, availability of a robust mechanism for achieving PBSD within the constraints of the current building codes, and reliable and simplified methods for PBSD and seismic performance evaluation of buildings, remained unresolved. The proposed research will address these issues by developing simplified and practical methods for performance-driven seismic design of regular and irregular buildings. Similar methods for multiple levels of seismic hazard such as, post-earthquake fire will also be developed. Apart from the design of new buildings, the methods developed herein can be potentially used for performance-based seismic upgrade of existing buildings. Performance monitoring of new and existing structures is another important aspect complementary to PBD. New methods for performance assessment using structural health monitoring techniques will be developed for that. There is a significant potential for innovation in the proposed research which aims at enhancing the fundamental knowledge on structural design and performance monitoring/assessment, and producing high performing, safer, and sustainable/durable civil infrastructure.