Ronald L. Mayes, Ph.D.

Staff Consultant, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger

“Base (Seismic) Isolation Technology, US Resiliency Council and the Building Rating System”

Abstract

Design requirements for seismically isolated buildings were first codified in the United States as an appendix to the 1991 Uniform Building Code. In the intervening years, those provisions have not been significantly changed. Seismic isolation has been perceived as expensive, complicated, and time-consuming in both design and execution. While these criticisms were valid the fault does not lie with the technology itself. The drawbacks to using seismic isolation stemmed from the design professions ability to fully quantify the benefits of the technology coupled with the conservative and burdensome code requirements.

The presentation will describe the revisions to Chapter 17 of ASCE 7-10 that will be applicable to ASCE 7-16 provisions. The recommendations are the most significant modifications since the 1991 provisions were adopted. The recommended changes will make the design and implementation process as economic and as easy to implement as possible and should expand the use of seismic isolation technology in the US.

The US Resiliency Council (USRC) offers the structural engineering profession a unique opportunity to transform the way it communicates with both clients and the public about the performance of buildings we design and retrofit. The USRC was officially launched in November 2015.

The notion that there is a disconnect between the anticipated performance of buildings in a major earthquake, and what the public understands or expects, is not new. Bridging this communication gap has been discussed in a number of different forums. The thought was that if the public could be made more aware of their potential seismic risk, they could be expected to make better-informed decisions on owning and leasing properties, and market forces would eventually drive the building design, management, and procurement process into more resilient seismic design.

Building on the work of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) Existing Buildings Ratings Committee over the past eight years, and the recommendations of an Applied Technology Council (ATC) User’s workshop, in 2011, the U.S. Resiliency Council^® (USRC) was formed as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization to establish a rating system for certifying the resiliency of buildings to natural and man-made hazards. Efforts to develop a building rating system have included many technical and philosophical challenges, and the USRC has formed a diverse coalition of technical organizations, engineering firms, individuals, industry supporters, and government agencies to develop a consensus-based approach to solving these challenges.

The USRC is modeled after the U.S. Green Buildings Council (USGBC^®). Like the USGBC, the USRC will certify practitioners and best practices, and technically review ratings shared with the public so that USRC ratings are credible and consistent. The USRC was officially launched in late-2015 and this presentation will describe the goals and objectives and organization of the USRC. The need for a building rating system, the potential users, the information it provides and the measures that will be used to maintain the long term credibility of the system.

Bio

Ron Mayes, Ph.D., is a co-founder and Acting Executive Director of the US Resiliency Council and a lifelong advocate for improved earthquake resilience of our communities.  Currently a Staff Consultant with Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger in San Francisco, Ron is the firm’s in-house expert on the application of innovative technology.  He founded and served as President of Dynamic Isolation Systems, Inc. a firm that pioneered the use of base isolation technology in the United States. Ron has served as the co-chair of the Building Ratings Committee of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California since 2006. He has also served as the Chair of ASCE 7 and ASCE 41 committees on base isolation and energy dissipation.  He is a past Secretary/ Treasurer of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and a former Technical and Executive Director of the Applied Technology Council (ATC).  He was selected “Structural Engineer of the Year” by the Wiley Journal “Design of Tall and Other Buildings” in 2006 and is a Fellow of both the Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) and SEAONC. Ron received his Ph.D. in structural engineering from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1972.