Application of Fiber Model for Progressive Collapse Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Frames

The progressive collapse of the building structures due to accidents has become a hot research topic of civil engineering all around the world. The researches and designs on progressive collapse are based on accurately simulation for the failure process of whole structural systems. However, due to the complicated material and geometric nonlinearity and large computational workload in collapse simulation for a real reinforced concrete (RC) structure, normal finite element (FE) analysis with solid elements are not feasible in collapse researches. Hence, a fiber beam model is proposed in this work to simulate the collapse of RC frame. The fiber beam model is firstly verified with a collapse test of a planar RC frame. And then following the design process proposed in DoD 2005, the collapse processes of two typical Chinese 8-story RC frames with and without slabs respectively are simulated and compared. The influence of slabs on the progressive collapse behavior of structures is studied and the result proofs that the slabs can greatly improve the progressive collapse resistance of structures.