Development of integrated system for progressive collapse analysis of building structures considering dynamic effects

In this study the integrated system for progressive collapse analysis, which can evaluate the damage level of every member and automatically construct the modified structural model for the next analysis step, has been developed. The existing nonlinear analysis program code OpenSees was used as a finite element solver in the integrated system for progressive collapse analysis. The developed integrated system includes a pre-processor with intuitive graphic user interfaces and a post-processor that can simulate the progressive collapse by 3D graphic animation. Using the developed integrated system, example structures subjected to a column failure were analyzed, and the behavior of the structures was investigated in the context of how to model the failed members and whether the dynamic effects are considered or not. The analysis results show that the dynamic amplification can be larger than two which is recommended by the GSA and DoD guidelines and the collapse mechanism depends greatly on the modeling technique for failed members. 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.