An overview of progressive collapse in structural systems

It has become evident recently that abnormal loads need to be considered in the design of structures so that progressive collapse can be prevented. Building collapses such as the Ronan Point, Alfred P. Murrah, and World Trade Center have shown the catastrophic nature of progressive collapse and with an increasing trend towards more terrorist action in the future, it is clear structural design must include progressive collapse mitigation. The most critical abnormal loadings that have potential to cause progressive failure are blast and impact. These loads are impulsive and dynamic in nature with the potential to induce destructive forces, and to further complicate matters is the random nature of occurrence which makes it difficult to predict adequate levels of design. Much research has been conducted over the past several decades, but to this day very little standardized language has been published to help designers create progressive collapse resistant structures. What is known is that robust structures can be built economically by following a general design philosophy of redundancy, ductility, and overall structural integrity. Reinforced concrete structures are especially well suited for resisting progressive collapse by specifying steel reinforcement detailing such as continuous top and bottom reinforcement, close spacing of stirrups, strategic locations of splices, continuous reinforcement through joints, and designing slabs for two-way action. Steel structures have good ductility, but connection detailing is usually the weakest point and requires special design, such as the use of the SidePlate (tm) connection.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Georgakopoulos, Phillip J. (Phillip John), 1982-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eduardo Kausel.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/31117

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/31117