Progressive Collapse Analysis of Steel-Concrete Composite Frames with Floor Slab Actions

This paper proposes a simplified slab model, which can be easily incorporated in the commercial software ABAQUS for collapse analysis of 3-D composite building frames. The proposed model avoids complex geometric modelling of metal deck profile and requires less computational time for analysing large building frame. Verification studies have been carried by comparing the results with established experimental and numerical data available from the literature. The proposed slab model was applied to a three dimensional 9-storey building frame and the results are compared with the model without the floor slabs. Numerical results show that incorporation of slabs in the model reduces the beam deflection by as much as 50%. As one of the failure criteria for the progressive collapse is related to limiting beam deflection, the present of slabs tends to reduce the beam deflection and enhance the robustness of the building against progressive collapse.