Robustness Assessment of Steel Moment Resisting Frames

Nowadays, many buildings with steel Moment Resisting Frames (MRF) are built in seismic zones when seismic codes are at its early stages of development, and as such, these structures are often designed solely to resist lateral wind loads without providing an overall ductile mechanism. On the other hand, current seismic design criteria based on hierarchy of resistance allow enhancing the structural ductility and controlling the structural plastic behaviour. Therefore, seismic design criteria might also be beneficial to improve the structural robustness. In order to investigate this issue for steel MRF, a parametric study based on pushdown analysis and on the Energy Balance Method is described and discussed in the present paper. With this regard, the following cases are examined: (i) MRF not designed for seismic actions and (ii) MRF designed for seismic actions. The investigated parameters are (i) the number of storeys, (ii) the interstorey height, (iii) the span length, (iv) the building plan layout and (v) the column loss scenario. Results show that the low-rise and long span structures are the most prone to progressive collapse and that the elements in the directly affected zone of the wind designed 8 storey structures respond in the elastic range. Structures designed according to the capacity design principles were found to be less robust than wind designed structures that are characterized by strong beams and weak columns. The number of elements above the removed column and size of beam cross section were found to be key parameters in arresting progressive collapse.