Methods of Quantifying of Structural Robustness

Abstract

Structural robustness as a property of structural systems has gained renewed following several recent failures, where the consequences were disproportionate to the initating image. There have been some methods developed towards quantifying robustness or vulnerability and achieving greater robustness in structures recently but they remain scattered. In this paper, basis for the development of measures to quantify structural robustness are formulated. Various approaches for quantifying robustness are distinguished into measures based on structural behaviors and structural attributes of systems. It is shown that measures based on structural behaviors often seem to be expressive but require complex calculation. Measures based on structural attributes are usually calculable while their expressiveness is not yet adequate. Different types of structure which have a tendency for different types of collapse can be described favorably by different measures of robustness.