Development of Progressive Collapse Analysis Program considering Dynamic Effects

Widespread propagation of failure can be triggered by localized damage to a structure due to fires, impact and explosion etc. Progressive collapse analysis is usually carried out using a commercial structural analysis software. In this case, it is required to investigate the failed members and re-run the structural analysis with modifying the analytical model at each step. However, the process is too complicated and may induce modeling errors. In this paper, the progressive collapse analysis program is developed to automatically check the failed members and construct the modified structural model at each step. In the development of a progressive collapse analysis program, significant time and efforts may be required to develop and verify the analytical engine that can perform geometrical and material nonlinear analysis program and represent the failure of structural members. Therefore, OpenSees, that is widely used in many research groups, was used for the developed progressive collapse analysis control program. The control program developed in this study automatically computes the damage indices of all the structural members and performs a progressive collapse analysis after the first failed member is selected. Using the developed program, we compared the progressive collapse behaviors of the example structures considering dynamic effects or not, and the difference of progressive collapse mechanism according to the modeling method of the failed members.