Mitigating Risk from Abnormal Loads and Progressive Collapse
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 20, Issue 4
Abstract
A progressive collapse initiates as a result of local structural damage and develops, in a chain reaction mechanism, into a failure that is disproportionate to the initiating local damage. Such collapses can be initiated by many causes. Changes in building practices to address low probability/high consequence events and to lessen building vulnerability to progressive collapse currently are receiving considerable attention in the professional engineering community and in standard-writing groups in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Procedures for identifying and screening specific threat scenarios, for assessing the capability of a building to withstand local damage without a general structural collapse developing, and for assessing and mitigating the risk of progressive collapse can be developed using concepts of probabilistic risk assessment. This paper provides a framework for addressing issues related to low probability/high consequence events in building practice, summarizes strategies for progressive collapse risk mitigation, and identifies challenges for implementing general provisions in national standards such as ASCE Standard 7, Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is an expanded version of a compact paper that originally was presented at the ASCE/SEI Structures Congress 2005 in New York, N.Y. Its preparation was supported, in part, by awards from the National Science Foundation (Award No. NSFCMS 0084590), Sandia National Laboratory (Award No. UNSPECIFIEDA0346-15896), and the National Institute of Building Sciences. The writer would like to acknowledge the thoughtful suggestions of an anonymous reviewer of a related manuscript, which led to the guidance for implementation summarized in Table 1. However, the views expressed are solely those of the writer, and may not represent the positions of the aforementioned organizations or other individuals.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 20 • Issue 4 • November 2006
Pages: 315 - 323
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 4, 2006
Accepted: May 9, 2006
Published online: Nov 1, 2006
Published in print: Nov 2006
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