Objectives
Steel structures designed and constructed according to modern practice can be expected to meet the performance objective of life safety under severe seismic loading. Current research focuses on minimizing earthquake-induced damage to new steel structures to reduce social and economic disruption from future earthquakes. New topics like retrofit of old structures and understanding the collapse behaviour of steel structures under extreme seismic loading are dealt with. At the same time, a new generation of large-scale laboratory facilities for simulating earthquake effects on structures has been commissioned, enabling realistic simulations that were not possible in the past. To reflect these current trends, the STESSA 2012 conference objectives are to disseminate research in the following general areas: minimizing earthquake-induced structural and non-structural damage to new steel structures; retrofit to improve the seismic performance of existing, critical structures; understanding the collapse behaviour of steel structures under extreme seismic loading; and utilizing advanced laboratory facilities to understand and improve the seismic performance of steel structures.