This report, FEMA-353 – Recommended Specifications and Quality Assurance Guidelines for Steel Moment-Frame Construction for Seismic Applications has been prepared by the SAC Joint Venture, under contract to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to indicate those standards of workmanship for structural steel fabrication and erection deemed necessary to achieve reliably the design performance objectives contained in the set of companion publications prepared under this same contract:
• FEMA-350 – Recommended Seismic Design Criteria for New Steel Moment-Frame Buildings, which provides recommended criteria, supplemental to FEMA-302, 1997 NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings and Other Structures, for the design and construction of steel moment-frame buildings and provides alternative performance-based design criteria;
• FEMA-351 – Recommended Seismic Evaluation and Upgrade Criteria for Existing Welded Steel Moment-Frame Buildings, which provides recommended methods to evaluate the probable performance of existing steel moment-frame buildings in future earthquakes and to retrofit these buildings for improved performance; and
• FEMA-352 – Recommended Postearthquake Evaluation and Repair Criteria for Welded, Steel Moment-Frame Buildings, which provides recommendations for performing postearthquake inspections to detect damage in steel moment-frame buildings following an earthquake, evaluating the damaged buildings to determine their safety in the postearthquake environment, and repairing damaged buildings.
The recommended design criteria contained in these three companion reports are based on the material and workmanship standards contained in this document, which also includes discussion of the basis for the quality control and quality assurance criteria contained in the recommended specifications.
This document has been prepared in two parts.
Part I, Recommended Specifications, provides recommended supplemental requirements, for typical project specifications for structural steel fabrication and erection, which should be included in specifications for the construction of steel moment frames designed for seismic applications. These recommendations have not been subjected to a formal consensus adoption process, nor was formal review or approval obtained from technical committees of the Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC). However, these recommendations have received extensive review by practicing engineers, researchers, fabricators and erectors, and the standards of construction indicated by these recommendations were presumed to exist during the development of the design criteria contained in FEMA-350, FEMA-351, and FEMA-352. It is anticipated that these recommendations will be submitted for consideration by the applicable standards committees of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT), and American Welding Society (AWS). These organizations are expected to subject these recommendations to a consensus review process, the result of which may be the modification of the industry standard specifications to incorporate these recommendations, perhaps in modified or abbreviated form. In the interim, it is recommended that the applicable portions of these Recommended Specifications be included in construction documents where the design is based on FEMA-350, FEMA-351, or FEMA-352.
Part II, Recommended Quality Assurance Guidelines, has been prepared to provide design professionals, building officials, and contractors with recommended procedures for performing quality control and quality assurance functions in the construction of steel moment frames designed for seismic applications. These recommendations are non-mandatory but are deemed appropriate to achieving the construction standards presumed in the design criteria presented in FEMA-350, FEMA-351 and FEMA-352, and may be used as a resource in developing Quality Assurance Plans as required in FEMA-302, 1997 NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings and Other Structures.
This document is not intended to serve as a complete model for direct adoption as building code provisions, nor is it intended to supplant existing building code, design specification or material specification provisions, except as specifically noted in the text. Because building codes, design specifications, and material specifications are constantly being revised, users of this document are cautioned to review its provisions to verify their suitability and compliance with current governing standards. This document has been prepared using standards in existence or soon to be adopted at the time of publication.
Some of the material contained in this document replicates provisions of existing codes and standards. This has been done for the following reasons: to provide a complete document using a style typical of building project specifications; to highlight critical portions of existing standards that are commonly missed because the contents are contained within larger codes, specifications and standards, and may be atypical of common requirements for general steel construction; and to establish the basis for the provisions themselves.
Detailed explanations of the basis for these recommended specifications and quality assurance guidelines, hereinafter referred to as Recommendations, may be found in a series of State of the Art Reports prepared in parallel with these criteria. These reports include:
•FEMA-355A – State of the Art Report on Base Metals and Fracture. This report summarizes current knowledge of the properties of structural steels commonly employed in building construction, and the production and service factors that affect these properties.
•FEMA-355B – State of the Art Report on Welding and Inspection. This report summarizes current knowledge of the properties of structural welding commonly employed in building construction, the effect of various welding parameters on these properties, and the effectiveness of various inspection methodologies in characterizing the quality of welded construction.
• FEMA-355C – State of the Art Report on Systems Performance. This report summarizes an extensive series of analytical investigations into the demands induced in steel moment-frame buildings designed to various criteria, when subjected to a range of different ground motions. The behavior of frames constructed with fully restrained, partially restrained and fracture-vulnerable connections is explored for a series of ground motions, including motion anticipated at near-fault and soft-soil sites.
•FEMA-355D – State of the Art Report on Connection Performance. This report summarizes the current state of knowledge of the performance of different types of moment-resisting connections under large inelastic deformation demands. It includes information on fully restrained, partially restrained, and partial strength connections, both welded and bolted, based on laboratory and analytical investigations.
•FEMA-355E – State of the Art Report on Past Performance of Steel Moment-Frame Buildings in Earthquakes. This report summarizes investigations of the performance of steel moment-frame buildings in past earthquakes, including the 1995 Kobe, 1994 Northridge, 1992 Landers, 1992 Big Bear, 1989 Loma Prieta and 1971 San Fernando events.
•FEMA-355F – State of the Art Report on Performance Prediction and Evaluation. This report describes the results of investigations into the ability of various analytical techniques, commonly used in design, to predict the performance of steel moment-frame buildings subjected to earthquake ground motion. Also presented is the basis for performance-based evaluation procedures contained in the design criteria and guideline documents, FEMA-350 to FEMA-353.
In addition to the recommended design criteria and the State of the Art Reports, a companion document has been prepared for building owners, local community officials and other non-technical audiences who need to understand this issue. A Policy Guide to Steel Moment-Frame Construction (FEMA-354), addresses the social, economic, and political issues related to the earthquake performance of steel moment-frame buildings. FEMA-354 also includes discussion of the relative costs and benefits of implementing the recommended criteria.
