Progressive collapse assesment of reinforced concrete structures according to gsa

Abstract EN

A building is subjected to progressive collapse when a primary vertical structural element fails resulting in failure of adjoining structural elements which, in their turn, cause further structural failure leading eventually to partial or total collapse of the structure.

Different deign codes addressed the structures' progressive collapse due to the sudden loss of a main vertical support such as the General Services Administration (GSA) [1] and the Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) [2].

Alternative Path Method (APM) is the main analysis method for evaluating the hazard of progressive collapse in the two codes.

In the current study, a progressive collapse assessment according to the GSA code is carried out for a typical ten-story reinforced concrete framed structure.

The structure is designed according to the Egyptian code for design and construction of reinforced concrete structures [3].

Fully nonlinear dynamic analysis for the structure is carried out using Applied Element Method [4, 5, 6, 7].

According to GSA code, primary vertical structural element is removed and collapsed area is investigated.

The investigated cases include the removal of a corner column, an edge column, an edge shear wall, internal columns, internal shear wall and a corner shear wall.

The numerical analysis shows that for economic design, the analysis should consider slabs and can't be simplified into a 2D or 3D bare frame analysis.

Reinforced concrete structures designed according to the Egyptian code meet the GSA limits and it were found to have a low potential for progressive collapse