Progressive Collapse Research: Current State and Future Needs

Abstract

Research on progressive collapse has advanced greatly in the past forty years. Motivated by heightened research interest around the globe stemming from recent high profile events, the rate of progress has been especially rapid in the past decade. Research in this area has been primarily enabled by massive improvements in computational simulation tools and hardware as well as structural testing at a scale and level of sophistication never seen before. While the research effort shows no signs of slowing down, several agencies have already undertaken large codification efforts in an attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing knowledge base into practical and meaningful guidelines for collapse-resistant design. This keynote paper presents the state-of-the-art in progressive collapse research. The paper sheds light on several topics including: methods for assessment of structural robustness; methodologies for enhancement of system collapse resistance; probabilistic models for progressive collapse risk assessment; and current trends and research needs, which discusses current gaps in our understanding of progressive collapse research and identifies research efforts needed to address them.