Economic Analysis of Code for Seismic Design of Buildings

In order to satisfy the economic requirement of structure under the need of seismic design, based on the development and economic function of seismic design code, the economic benefit of improving the seismic fortification was studied from the development viewpoint of seismic design code. Taken the standard Code for Seismic Design of Buildings (GB50011-2001) as the reference, a simple type of structure with two different fortification intensities was chosen to calculate. The costs of the low intensity structure after reinforcement and the high intensity structure were compared. The possible economic losses of structures in different seismic fortification intensity were also compared to analysis the affect of intensity on the building economic effect. The result showed that the economic benefit of high intensity structure was 1.07, and the reinforced low intensity structure was 0.58. So the economic benefit of structure with reasonable seismic input was evident.