Performance-Based Analysis in Civil Engineering: Overview of Applications

Abstract

Traditional design approaches in civil engineering mainly focus on codes/guidelines related to building an infrastructure, while performance-based analysis (PBA), an emerging new reality around the world, focuses on the performance of the end product. Professional organizations, academicians, and the industry have made significant contributions in formulating PBA in various civil engineering fields, where practical guidelines and principles have been adopted in infrastructure analysis. This paper presents a critical review of PBA applications in three civil engineering fields: transportation, environmental, and structural engineering. The applications are grouped into a wide array of civil engineering areas, including highway transportation, pavement design and management, air transportation, water-structures design and operation, landfill design, building architectural design for evacuation, urban energy design, building earthquake-based design, building wind-based design, and bridge design and management. A total of 187 publications on PBA were reviewed and details on 122 application papers (from 23 countries/regions) are presented. The review consists of vertical and horizontal scans of PBA applications. In the vertical scan, the applications in each civil engineering area are summarized in tabular format that shows the system element modeled, analysis objective, performance criteria, analytical tool, and specifications/codes. The horizontal scan (discussion and lessons learned) addresses the following aspects of PBA: (1) the wide array of analytical tools used, (2) the broad functional and process-related areas, (3) the advantages, challenges, and opportunities, and (4) potential future applications. It is hoped that the state-of-the-art review presented in this paper will help researchers/practitioners quickly find useful information about PBA and promote its development in their respective fields.