Engineering Know-How: Lessons from Earthquakes and Rules for Seismic Design - Dynamic Behavior of Concrete and Seismic Engineering - page 336

9.3. The aims of anti-seismic protection standards
9.3.1. Standardization of anti-seismic design
As far as construction is concerned, standardization codifies design and
calculation methods. When they are correctly applied, they help designers produce
constructions that ensure the safety of people and goods for their entire planned
lifespan. In the building field, design standards serve to supervise the calculation
methods used, whilst other regulations govern the strength and strain limits of
building materials and construction layouts. In Europe, prevailing standards rely on
a general philosophy of safety that is based on a semi-probabilistic approach using
safety partial coefficients.
In France, anti-seismic protection rules were only developed after the
Orleansville earthquake in Algeria (1954). The first standardizing text (AS 55) was,
however, used only in Algeria. The earthquake in Agadir, Morocco (1960) a few
years later gave birth to the PS 69 rules that remained as guiding principles for over
20 years. After the El Asnam earthquake in Algeria (1980), it became clear that the
PS 69 rules did not ensure sufficient safety in some situations, and a review was
instigated. As such, a 1982 addendum contained some missing construction layouts
to the PS 69 rules. New regulations were requested to compensate for deficiencies in
PS 69, and these incorporated more recent research discoveries. This led to the PS
92 standard [COL 95a], which is currently in use.
The PS 92 standard is devoted to the anti-seismic design of commonly used
buildings, according to the BAEL standard. The materials addressed are reinforced
or pre-stressed concrete, steel structure frames and timbers. The text includes all
general measures concerning the targets to achieve, the seismic actions to take into
account, the calculation methods to be used, and strict definitions of safe
foundations. It also contains a chapter about concrete pre-cast elements. Its structure
and the concepts used are similar to those in the very latest codes.
In 1971, the European Commission decided to launch a program aimed at
harmonizing technical specifications in the construction field in across the Common
Market. The Commission introduced standardized technical rules for construction
work design (“ Structural Eurocodes ”). The first version of these standards was
introduced for experimental work. The codes use experimental standards from ENV
1991 to ENV 1999, the first parts of which were published in the early 1990s. After
a three-year experimentation period, the ENV experimental standards (see [COL
00a], [COL 00b] and [COL 01, which give those parts of Eurocode 8 ENV related to
buildings) were transformed into EN European standards. In their final format, all of
the design standards therein (approximately 60) were gathered into ten subsets that
make up the Eurocodes included in EN 1990 to EN 1999. Anti-seismic design is the