Progressive collapse risk analysis: literature survey, relevant construction standards and guidelines

Abstract

A technical literature survey has been conducted concerning the problems of building robustness and progressive collapse. These issues gained special interest in construction after the partial collapse of the Ronan Point apartment building in London in 1968. Enhanced interest appeared again after the disproportionate collapse of the A.P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and the total collapse of the World Trade Center towers in 2001, both caused by terrorist attacks. This report, which is an updated version of the 2009 one, aims at summarising the state-of-the-art in the subject of progressive collapse risk of civil engineering structures. First, a list of main terms and definitions related to progressive collapse are presented. Then, a review of procedures and strategies for progressive collapse avoidance is provided, based on selected EU and US design codes, standards and guidelines. A review of research efforts and results in the field follows, as reported in international journals and conference papers. Different proposals of robustness measures of structures are also examined, and some characteristic cases of progressive collapses of real buildings are presented.