Although an importance factor of 1.5 may promote adequate performance of essential facilities built in firm soil;
the actual value of this factor corresponding to structures built in soft soil exhibits significant dependence with
respect to the dynamic characteristics of the structural system. Because of this, the current use given to the
importance factor may result in conservative or unsafe design of essential facilities built in soft soils. One way to
improve the seismic design of essential facilities is to formulate displacement-based approaches. Within this
context, a displacement-based methodology should aim at controlling simultaneously the level of structural and
non-structural damage by limiting the plastic rotation and inter-story drift demands in the structural system of the
essential facility.
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