These proceedings, arising from an international workshop, present research results and ideas on issues of importance to seismic risk reduction and the development of future seismic codes.

Forty scientists working in 13 different countries detail in this work the most recent advances in seismic design and performance assessment of reinforced concrete buildings. It is a valuable contribution in the mitigation of natural disasters.

This is a compendium of invited papers focusing on earthquake resistant design of reinforced concrete buildings with an emphasis on: a) energy concepts and damage models in seismic analysis and design; and b) analysis and seismic behaviour of buildings with structural walls. It has long been recognized that energy input, absorption and dissipation are the most fundamental quantities controlling seismic performance. However, to this day, energy concepts have been ignored in earthquake resistant design because of apparent complexities in the quantification of energy demands, capacities and their implementation in the design process. The first part of this text illustrates how energy terms together with cumulative damage models can be utilized to provide quantitiative information useful for damage assessment and design. In the second part papers focus on modelling of the nonlinear static and dynamic response of structures containing walls and propose solution techniques intended to contribute to a more accurate prediction of seismic behaviour of such structures. This work details advances in seismic design and performance assessment of reinforced concrete buildings. It should be a val