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A procedure for earthquake-resistant design is developed to limit the potential damage of buildings to a tolerable level. The procedure is based on the damage model developed earlier (Park and Ang, 1984) in which structural damage is expressed as a function of the maximum deformation and dissipated hysteretic energy. The tolerable degree of damage is defined on the basis of calibration with observed damages from past major earthquakes. The design method is examined in the context of reliability.

SUMMARYA random vibration method is developed for the response analysis of hysteretic structural systems under stochastic twodimensional earthquake excitations. The biaxial hysteretic restoring force is modelled by coupled non-linear differential equations; the response statistics are obtained using the equivalent linearization technique. The validity of the proposed model is appraised using available biaxial loading tests of reinforced concrete columns. A parametric study was performed to examine the significance of theeffects of biaxial interaction under earthquake excitations. A practical method to evaluate the extreme response statistics is also presented.

The computational assessment of system reliability of structures has remained a challenge in the field of reliability engineering. Calculation of the failure probability for a system is generally difficult even if the potential failure modes are known or can be identified, because available analytical methods require determination of the sensitivity of performance functions, information on mutual correlations among potential failure modes, and determination of design points. In the present paper, a method based on moment approximations is proposed for structural system reliability assessment that is applicable to both series and nonseries systems. The point estimate method is applied to evaluate the first few moments of the system performance function of a structure from which the momentbased reliability index and failure probability can be evaluated without Monte Carlo simulations. The procedure does not require the computation of derivatives, nor determination of the design point and computation of mutual correlations among failure modes; thus, it should be computationally effective for structural assessment of system reliability.