A Review on Progressive Collapse of Building Structures

Progressive collapse of building structures is generally triggered by a local failure due to accidental actions, followed by subsequent chain effect of the structures which may result in wide range failure or even collapse of the entire buildings. Since the “911” event, progressive collapse of building structures has been widely concerned by engineers and researchers. This paper assesses the current researches on this issue from experimental study, numerical simulation and theoretical analysis. Given the limitation of costs and difficulties of experimental tests, the experimental studies investigate the collapse mechanism, such as development of stress/strain and damage/failure of materials, mainly via the scaled down specimens of structural components and substructures. On the other hand, the collapse behavior of entire building structures is analyzed via the numerical methods, such as the finite element method and the discrete element method. Further, the collapse resistance demand and the robustness assessment for building structures are theoretically studied in depth in which the simplified theoretical models of the collapse-resisting demand and the collapse risk assessment are proposed respectively. At last, the design method to prevent progressive collapse for building structures is also discussed.

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