Abstract
Existing infrastructure has proven to be resilient and robust against car and truck bombings. The impacts of terrorist attacks are often overstated, and the tragic events of 9/11 appear to be more of an aberration than a harbinger of worse to come. A case study describes fatality risks from progressive collapse caused by a large truck bomb, and then assesses probabilistic costs and benefits of design measures mandated by the United States to mitigate against progressive collapse for new federal government buildings. It was found that disproportionate collapse is a rare event, and there have been no fatalities from disproportionate collapse or other structural damage in Western countries in the 20 years since the tragic events of 9/11. Clearly, a specific threat involving a massive and larger than expected vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attack can lead to blast-resistant strengthening for buildings to be justified and cost-effective. However, the likelihood of nonspecific threats will need to exceed per building per year for structural strengthening against progressive collapse to be cost-effective. This is equivalent to an average of six VBIED threats against large federal buildings per year, and that the threat involves a VBIED large enough to potentially cause progressive collapse. Policing and intelligence measures to warn or prevent terrorist attacks are likely to be a more cost-effective countermeasure.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The support of the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP210101487 is gratefully acknowledged. The author greatly appreciates his discussions and collaboration with Professor John Mueller and Dr Michael Netherton.
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Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 10 • October 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 19, 2021
Accepted: Jun 9, 2021
Published online: Aug 7, 2021
Published in print: Oct 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 7, 2022
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