Jack Moehle

Professor of the Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Performance-based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings

Thursday, March 11, 2021– 4:30 pm

Jack Moehle is Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches and conducts research on subjects in structural engineering with emphasis on earthquake engineering and reinforced concrete. He is the author of over 350 publications, including a book on earthquake-resistant design of concrete buildings. He is active in professional practice, providing consulting and peer review for major projects including tall buildings, urban transportation systems, and regional infrastructure projects. He has been a member of the American Concrete Institute’s Building Code Committee since 1989 and was chair during 2014-2019. He is an Honorary Member of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California and a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute, the American Society of Civil Engineers/SEI, and the Structural Engineers Association of California. He has received numerous awards, including the George W. Housner Medal from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in 2020. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and of the Academia de Ingeniería de México.

Performance-based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings.  Performance-based seismic design of tall buildings in the western United States began in earnest shortly after the turn of the 21st century. Although even the first designs were subject to independent peer review, there were no guidelines or accepted criteria for how to conduct and review a performance-based design, with the result that similar buildings were often designed to satisfy distinctly different criteria. Guidelines and building code provisions were soon developed to improve uniformity in design approaches and to foster the adoption of the performance-based approach. This lecture will review the development of performance-based seismic design of tall buildings, document a typical design application, and summarize results of over a decade of experience in tall building designs.