Seismic standards
Concepts and design standards for earthquake resistant buildings

It was at the beginning of the 20th century, following the earthquakes in San Francisco (April 18, 1906) and Messina (December 28, 1908), that the first seismic design rules were proposed. Their aim was simply to impose a certain resistance of structures to horizontal forces, by means of a fixed seismic coefficient (of the order of 0.1), possibly modulated according to elevation (higher seismic coefficient for upper floors).

At the time,...