Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.48-2011.

07

Fragility Assessment of Progressive Collapse Buildings

Kuan-Hsoung Chen1 Ke-Hung Liao2 Yu-Hsiang Chen3

 1
 2  3

1 Associate Professor, Department of Construction Engineering, National Quemoy University

2 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, China University of Science and Technology,
3 Graduate Student, Department of Civil Engineering, China University of Science and Technology,
Taiwan

   
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Abstract
The progressive damage of the steel moment resisting frame building is conducted
in this research. The feature of this is investigated with a nine-story moment frame
prototype building. The loss column scenario leads to develop the plastic hinges of
beams and columns having addressed accordingly. The vulnerability of frames due to
sudden column removal is performed with a nonlinear pushover analysis. The capacity
curves of the nonlinear pushover analysis and the configurations of plastic hinges are
constructed to identify the risk of the progressive damage.

Keywords: progressive damage; steel moment resisting frame building; plastic hinge; capacity curve;
nonlinear pushover analysis.

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Fragility Assessment of Progressive Collapse Buildings

I. Introduction
After the accidental event of 11 September 2001, more researchers pay more
attentions on the causes of the progressive collapse of buildings due to loss the columns.
The corresponding design guidance to mitigate the progressive collapse has been
specified in UK and US. The Department of Defense (DoD) [1] and the General
Services Administration (GSA) [2] in the United States have a regulation to maintain
the structures integrity after loss of columns to avoid the progressive collapse to
propagate. The Building Regulations [3] of UK and BS5950 [4] also have strategy to
avoid the progressive collapse damage.

Several researches haven been conducted with the loss column scenario. An
analysis with plan model of steel braced frames demonstrates that eccentrically braced
frame is superior to the special concentrically braced frame in resisting the progressive
collapse [5]. A multi-level framework for progressive collapse assessment of buildings
is successfully incorporated in the system pseudo-static capacity [6, 7]. The analysis of
the progressive collapse-resisting capacity of steel moment resisting frames adopted
alternate path methods in the GSA and DoD guidelines reveals that the nonlinear
dynamic analysis provided greater responses [8]. A removed corner wall column led to
more vulnerable than those of other locations of column loss and the increase of story
number can reduce the risk of progressive collapse [9]. The capacity curves by a
nonlinear pushover analysis can predict the progressive collapse [10]. The effective
tying of joints can be improved by a more rigid connection to prevent progressive
collapse [11].

The objective of this research is to identify the progressive damage by the

nonlinear pushover analysis. The capacity curves of the various column loss scenarios
are constructed with the corner and the interior columns and different stories.

II. Modeling of multi-story building

A two-dimensional, nine-story, three-bay moment-resisting frame building serves
as an illustrative example to perform the nonlinear analysis. Columns are spaced at 9.1
m, and column height is 4 m each story, except the column height of the first story is 5.5
m with a total height of 37.5 m as shown in Figure 1 [12]. Member sizes of beams and

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 Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.48-2011.07

columns are shown in Table 1. All fully restrained moment connections are adopted in
this frame. The steel material of beams and columns is ASTM A992, with yield and
tensile strength values equal to 345 MPa and 450 MPa, respectively.
This building is designed for a moderate seismic risk level with seismic loads
control over wind loads [12]. The dead loads consist of slab self-weight and
superimposed miscellaneous dead load, a total of 3.83 kPa and 2.87 kPa, for each floor
and the roof, respectively, in addition to a 0.96 kPa cladding and frame self-weight. The
design live loads are 2.39 kPa and 0.96 kPa partition load for each story and 0.96 kPa
for the roof level.
Nonlinear frame hinges are assigned to both ends of columns and beams based on
FEMA-356 (FEMA, 2000) criteria. A coupled P-M2-M3 hinge, based on the interaction
of axial forces and bi-axial bending moments at the hinge location, used to simulate the
columns. M3 hinge simulates the nonlinear action of the beams. The nonlinear hinges
are fully developed prior to connections failure.

Table 1 Member sizes of beams and columns

Story Beam Column

8th-Roof W21x44 W18x50

6th-7th W24x55 W18x97

4th-5th W24x68 W18x97

1st-3rd W27x84 W18x119

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Fragility Assessment of Progressive Collapse Buildings

3@9.1m =27.3 m

8@4m
=32m

5.5 m

Figure 1 Moment-resisting frame building

Case 1 Case 2

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Case 3 Case 4

Case 5 Case 6

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Case 7 Case 8

Figure 2 Various locations of column removal scenarios

Table 2 Natural periods of various locations of column removal scenarios

Case Period (s) Case Period (s)

1 2.1648 5 1.8239

2 1.8426 6 1.8021

3 1.9181 7 1.7849

4 1.8185 8 1.7874

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III. Capacity curves of column removal scenarios

Eight various locations of column removal scenarios based on the previous
research for optimization schemes are adopted in this study [12]. The removal columns
can be classified into corner and interior columns, and accounted for the symmetry of
structural configuration, as depicted in Figure 2. The loss corner and interior columns of
moment-resisting frames are the first, fifth, seventh, and ninth stories, respectively.
The natural periods of corresponding fundamental modes after removal columns
are presented in Table 2. The elongation of the vibrated natural periods due to loss of the
columns is compared with the natural period of the intact structure, 1.7827 s. The future
study can be extended to more than one column loss.
The capacity curves of the column loss buildings can be achieved with a nonlinear
pushover analysis in the vertical direction based on the various column removal
scenarios presented in Figures 3a and 3b for the loss of corner and interior columns,
respectively. The reduction of capacity is with an increase of the building height. The
capacity of the column loss in the first story has three times greater than those in the
roof story. The column loss in the first story has nine cantilever beams to develop the
plastic hinges to trigger the entire structure failure. However, those in the roof story has
only one cantilever beam to develop the plastic hinge. The failure of this is a local
collapse and is not widespread to propagate this damage.
The interesting finding in the interior column loss on the roof reveals the force
redistributed to its neighboring beams and columns. The US General Service
Administration (GSA) recommended a dynamic amplification factor (DAF), DAF=2, to
account for suddenly column loss. The structures in the downward loading with DAF in
the first story column loss are elastic without developing any plastic hinges, as
illustrated in Figures 3a and 3b. This demonstrates that column loss in the first story
both corner and interior columns dont lead to the progressive collapse using GSA
design guidelines.

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Fragility Assessment of Progressive Collapse Buildings

16000
corner column Case 1 1F
14000
Case 3 5F
12000 Case 5 7F
Case 7 Roof
Base shear(kN)

10000 DL+0.25LL
2(DL+0.25LL)
8000

6000

4000

2000

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Displacement(cm)

(a) Corner column loss

16000
interior column Case 2 1F
14000
Case 4 5F
12000 Case 6 7F
Case 8 Roof
Base shear(kN)

10000 DL+0.25LL
2(DL+0.25LL)
8000

6000

4000

2000

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Displacement(cm)

(b) Interior column loss

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16000
Case 1 1F(corner column)
14000
Case 2 1F(interior column)
12000 Case 3 5F(corner column)
Case 4 5F(interior column)
Base shear(kN)

10000

8000

6000

4000

2000

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Displacement(cm)

(c) 1 F and 5F ( corner columns v.s. interior columns)

10000
Case 5 7F(corner column)
Case 6 7F(interior column)
8000
Case 7 Roof(corner column)
Case 8 Roof(interior column)
Base shear(kN)

6000

4000

2000

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Displacement(cm)

(d) 7 F and Roof (corner columns v.s. interior columns)

Figure 3 Capacity curves of column removal scenarios

The difference between the corner and the interior column loss on the same story,
as depicted in Figures 3c and 3d, indicates that the strength of removal interior
columns are greater than those the case of the corner column loss.

IV. Configurations of developed nonlinear hinges

Nonlinear hinges developed on the beams above the column loss as illustrated in

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Figure 4. The sequence of this plastic

hinges is generated from lower story to higher story with an increase of
incremental vertical loadings. The beams lost their capacity with developing the
ultimate plastic hinges. This can be observed from the corresponding moment diagrams
of moment-resisting frames as presented in Figure 4. The influence area of the column
loss concentrated on the floors above and didnt propagate to its neighboring bays. The
sudden column removal of the first story leads to more severe damage than those of
other stories. The local damage appeared on the column removal of the roof level. GSA
recommends three locations of the column removal for external columns, middle of the
short side, middle of the long side, and corner of a building and one for internal column,
are all on the ground level. The corner column removal results in more damage than
those of other column removal.

V. Conclusions
This research conducted a nonlinear pushover analysis in the gravity direction to
achieve the capacity curves. The corresponding plastic hinges of beams and columns
above the sudden column loss are identified accordingly. The corner column removal
produces more severe damage than those of middle column removal. The ground level
column loss can activate the damage above the column removal and dont propagate to
its neighboring spans. The roof level column loss only leads to local damage. The future
study will extend to more than one column removal and to identify the risk of more
column sudden loss.

References
[1] Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC)-DoD. Design of buildings to resist
progressive collapse. Department of Defense; 2009.
[2] GSA. Progressive collapse analysis and design guidelines for new federal office
buildings and major modernization projects. The US General Services Administration;
2003.
[3] Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The building regulations 2000, Part A,
Schedule 1: A3, Disproportionate collapse. London (UK). 2004.
[4] British Standards Institution. BS 5950: Structural use of steelwork in buildings,

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Part 1: code of practice for design rolled and welded sections, London (UK); 2001.
[5] Khandelwal Kapil, El-Tawil Sherif, Sadek Fahim. Progressive collapse analysis
of seismically designed steel braced frames. J Constr Steel Res 2009; 65: 699708.
[6] Izzuddin BA, Vlassis AG, Elghazouli AY, Nethercot DA. Progressive collapse
of multi-storey buildings due to sudden column loss part I: simplified assessment
framework. Eng Struct 2008; 30(5):130818.
[7] Vlassis AG, Izzuddin BA, Elghazouli AY, Nethercot DA. Progressive collapse
of multi-storey buildings due to sudden column losspart II: application. Eng Struct
2008; 30(5):142438.
[8] Kim Jinkoo, Kim Taewan. Assessment of progressive collapse-resisting
capacity of steel moment frames. J Constr Steel Res 2009;65(1):16979.
[9] Paik Jeom Kee, Kim Bong Ju. Progressive collapse analysis of thin-walled box
columns. Thin-Walled Struct 2008; 46(5):54150.
[10] Tsai Meng-Hao, Lin Bing-Hui. Investigation of progressive collapse resistance
and inelastic response for an earthquake-resistant RC building subjected to column
failure. Eng Struct 2008; 30(12):361928.
[11] Yu Min, Zha Xiaoxiong, Ye Jianqiao. The influence of joints and composite
floor slabs on effective tying of steel. J Constr Steel Res 2010; 66(3):44251.
[12] Liu Min. Progressive collapse design of seismic steel frames using structural
optimization. Journal of Constructional Steel Research (2010),
doi:10.1016/j.jcsr.2010.10.009
[13] FEMA, 2000, Prestandard and Commentary for Seismic Rehabilitation of
Buildings, Prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (Report No. FEMA-356), Washington, D.C.

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Case 1 corner column removal on the ground level

Case 2 middle column removal on the ground level

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Case 3 corner column removal on the fifth story

Case 4 middle column removal on the fifth story

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Case 5 corner column removal on the seventh story

Case 6 middle column removal on the seventh story

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Case 7 corner column removal on the roof story

Case 8 middle column removal on the roof story

Figure 4 Nonlinear hinges and moment diagrams of column removal scenarios

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