This volume comprises papers presented at the China-US Millennium Symposium on Earthquake Engineering, held in Beijing, China, on November 8-11, 2000. This conference provides a forum for advancing the field of earthquake engineering through multi-lateral cooperation.

This book addresses applications of earthquake engineering for both offshore and land-based structures. It is self-contained as a reference work and covers a wide range of topics, including topics related to engineering seismology, geotechnical earthquake engineering, structural engineering, as well as special contents dedicated to design philosophy, determination of ground motions, shock waves, tsunamis, earthquake damage, seismic response of offshore and arctic structures, spatial varied ground motions, simplified and advanced seismic analysis methods, sudden subsidence of offshore platforms, tank liquid impacts during earthquakes, seismic resistance of non-structural elements, and various types of mitigation measures, etc. The target readership includes professionals in offshore and civil engineering, officials and regulators, as well as researchers and students in this field.

The work in this report is motivated by the performance-based engineering approach advocated by PEER. A comprehensive, object-oriented software framework for finite element sensitivity and reliability analysis is developed. The work builds on the existing software OpenSees. The software framework is used to investigate and address challenges particular to nonlinear finite element reliability analysis. As a result, smoothed material models, modifications in existing search algorithms, and a search algorithm hitherto not used in reliability analysis are developed.