Earthquake Damage Estimates of Conventional and Isolated Structures

The philosophy inherent in current seismic design codes for buildings accepts the premise that there will be both structural and non-structural damage but that life safety will be preserved. Estimating a dollar value for the cost of earthquake damage although difficult is the subject of this paper. Two 4-story structures, a moment frame and a braced frame are evaluated in a conventional and an isolated configuration. The results show that seismic isolation reduces the cost of earthquake damage by a factor of 5 in a moderate seismic zone and a factor of 6 in a high seismic zone.