Behrouz Shafei - MSc of Structural Engineering
Pierino Lestuzzi - Lecturer
Masoud Motavalli - Head of Structural Engineering Research Laboratory , EMPA, Dubendorf , Switzerland School of Civil Engineering , University of Tehran, Iran
Mahdi Zahrai - Assistant professor

The focus this paper is on consideration of the latest of New Zealand’s guideline of ’’Assessment of Structural Performance’’ especially ’’Existing Steel Structures’’ . This guideline covers the topics about some details of typical steel building construction used in New Zealand, general guidance on the relationship between structural characteristic of the older steel framed buildings and their expected performance in several earthquakes, assessing the mechanical properties of steel members and components existing steel building, design philosophy and assumptions, assessment of member and connection design strength and rotation capacity, checking the minimum level of adequacy for moment resisting steel framed seismic-resisting systems without infill panels (MRSFs) and reporting of the results (Assessment Level 1), checking the medium risk building adequacy for moment resisting steel framed seismic – resisting systems without infill panels (MRSFs) and reporting of the results (Assessment Level2) , general concepts on the evaluation of existing braced steel framed (CBF) buildings. This paper select different parts of the New Zealand’s guideline of assessment of existing steel buildings as a simple and also successful guideline, and furthermore will compare it with similar guideline which are more famous like FEMA 356 or EyroCode8, part3: Assessment and Retrofitting of Buildings, whenever is needed.

seismic - resisting system, existing steel building , seismic assessment , moment - resisting frames , braced frams