ASCE 31 and 41: Apocalypse Now

As engineers are being guided with greater frequency to ASCE 31, Seismic Evaluation of Existing Buildings, and ASCE 41, Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings, by state and federal government requirements as well as model building codes, greater numbers of buildings are being evaluated, upgraded, and even designed in accordance with the methodologies and criteria prescribed therein. By using these flawed standards, harm is being inflicted by the structural engineering profession on society-at-large. While the contributors to the original documents have been well aware of major technical problems with these documents since long before publication, efforts to mitigate the problems have been slow, and engineering studies of buildings across the country — including all buildings considered for lease by the Federal Government — are being impacted by these problems. To our knowledge, no formal efforts have yet been put forth to warn anyone — not engineers, not building owners, not government officials, and not building officials — that reliance on the documents can easily lead to wrong results — even though engineers most familiar with ASCE 31 and 41 acknowledge that in their own practice, use of the documents often entails modifying or ignoring major components of the published methodologies. In fact, despite the recent renewal of efforts by the associated ASCE committees to improve these standards as much as seven years after publication (and much more than a decade after the bases of these documents, FEMA 310 and 356, were published), these so-called standards remain highly flawed and continue to adversely affect the public interest. This paper discusses a selection of mind-boggling problems with ASCE 31 and 41, focusing on some aspects about which every engineer planning to use the documents ought to be aware.