Photo (top) and computer simulation (bottom) of a structural component experiencing forces similar to those in a building collapse scenario. In the photo, a reinforced concrete test specimen (representing part of a building’s structural frame) undergoes mechanical deformations comparable to what might be experienced following the loss of a load-bearing building column. The lower image shows the calculated concrete damage from a high-fidelity model of the test specimen (red indicates the areas with the most severe damage, and blue indicates undamaged concrete).
Credit: photo: NIST Technical Note 1720; image: NIST
Buildings in the U.S. are generally designed to withstand the usual suspects: rain, wind, snow and the occasional earthquake. Abnormal events such as gas explosions, vehicle impacts or uncontrolled building fires are not typically a consideration. If vulnerable buildings face any of these unanticipated events, the results could be tragic. But now, a new building standard can help engineers prevent the worst.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has released the ASCE/SEI 76-23 Standard for Mitigation of Disproportionate Collapse Potential in Buildings and Other Structures, the first national building standard of its kind. Developed over the course of a decade and informed by research led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the standard provides design requirements and guidance to keep small, isolated failures in a structure from propagating and bringing down the entire building or a major part of it — a phenomenon the standard defines as disproportionate collapse.
“Many different loads are considered in designing a building, but if there’s an unanticipated load that you didn’t explicitly design for, it shouldn’t cause the whole building to collapse,” said NIST research engineer Joseph Main, a member of the A ..
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