The paper describes research work carried out with the support of CICIND at the University of Melbourne.  Codes of practice generally recognise that it is not economical to design structures to remain elastic during the ultimate earthquake event and generally allow some inelastic behaviour.  This paper presents results from an experimental study undertaken to investigate the ductility of typical reinforced concrete chimney sections under cyclic loading.  The test specimens were large - 1200mm diameter, 30mm wall thickness, 4565mm long.  Different longitudinal and hoop reinforcing arrangements were tested.  Based on these results an inelastic analysis procedure has been established to assess the performance of reinforced concrete chimney structures under extreme earthquake excitation.  The procedure has been applied to a number of chimneys to develop design recommendations.  The cost benefits of design to the proposed recommendations as opposed to current standards are presented.