Is a design procedure that determines the strength required at designated plastic hinge locations to achieve the design aims in terms of defined displacement objectives.

 Background

  The design procedure know as Direct Displacement-Based Design(DDBD) has been developed over the past ten years with the aim of mitigating the deficiencies in current force-based design. The fundamental diference from force-based design is that DDBD characterizes the structure to be designed by a single degree of freedom (SDOF) representation of performance at peak displacement response, rather that by its initial elastic characteristics. This is based in the substitute structure approach pioneered by others.

Links

 http://www.utpl.edu.ec/ucg/images/stories/Investigaciones/suarez-kowalsky.pdf

 http://db.nzsee.org.nz/2005/Paper33.pdf

PRIESTLEY et al, (2007), "Displacement-Based Seismic Design of Structures”, IUSS Press, Pavia, Italy.