Earthquake engineering experts, public authorities, and the general public agree on the idea that the seismic safety and performance of the built environment is a matter of high priority. Furthermore, the widespread interest in methods addressing the seismic safety assessment of existing constructions reflects the global perception that such constructions are often exposed to disproportionate levels of seismic risk, as well as the need for rational and cost-effective interventions on the built environment. These methods range from standard-based approaches, that in many cases are based on simplified assumptions to ease their application, to fully probabilistic performance-based procedures that can express expected earthquake impacts using metrics more relevant to stakeholders. In light of these considerations, the objective of this Special Issue is to present and discuss different methodologies for the seismic safety assessment of existing constructions, ranging from simplified to fully probabilistic structure-specific approaches, as well as their application to different types of constructions. Original contributions containing fundamental and applied research, case studies, or reviewing the state-of-the-art are encouraged for submission to this Special Issue.
Keywords: standard-based method; performance-based seismic assessment; probabilistic risk assessment; probabilistic loss assessment; displacement-based assessment; advanced modeling of structures; simplified modeling of structures; seismic performance criteria.