SEISMIC PROVISIONS IN THE SAUDI BUILDING CODE

The paper describes the development of seismic provisions as presented in SBC 301(Design Loads for Building and Structures) which is one of the six codes constituting the structural part of Saudi Building Code (SBC). IBC and ASCE-7 were chosen to be the source codes where extensive modifications have been carried out to reduce complexity and to account for differences in the seismicity level, construction materials, structural systems and quality control between USA and the Kingdom. ASCE-7 has all the seismic provisions in one complex chapter, covering all different topics. In SBC 301, however, seismic provisions have been reorganized and rationally presented in eight chapters to represent distinguished themes. The paper aims at providing a brief introduction of various chapters of the code related to the seismic provisions in terms of contents and basic concepts. Challenges, changes and the overall process were highlighted for the purpose of facilitating the understanding of seismic provisions and permitting successful future revisions