Experimental study of the 3D effects on the performance of RC frame under the loss of an interior column scenario

• Main Author: Widjaja, Ryan William.
• Other Authors: Li Bing
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52896
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Progressive collapse has always been well-known as one of the main causes of structural damage in close-in detonation conditions. Studies and considerations of how to prevent progressive collapse have been widely examined since the havoc of the Ronal Point in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1968. Consequently, throughout the 1970s, numerous papers concerning over progressive collapse were published. Nevertheless, this topic had been quite unpopular in the 1980s, essentially due to the conditions around the world on that point of time where peace was relatively maintained and there was no significant collapse occurred during that period. It was only after several structural collapse events as a result of terrorist attacks (such as the World Trade Center Twin Towers of New York City collapse in 2001 and the previous attack resulting in the havoc of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that was located in Oklahoma City which took place in 1995) that brought back the urgency in the research of structural system that will be able to withstand progressive collapse. However, in majority of the study for evaluating the ability of RC buildings in resisting progressive collapse, their previous studies on the progressive collapse simplified the real three-dimensional (3D) beam-column substructure into two-dimensional (2D or planar) beam-column substructure. Therefore, the urgency of conducting experimental and analytical studies to evaluate on how 3D effects will affect the performance of Reinforced Concrete buildings against progressive collapse arises. Thus, four beam-column substructures were designed and casted for the purpose of this study. These four specimens were then grouped into two series (T and P). T represents 3D frames whereas P represents planar frames. The two series of specimens (T and P) consists of two specimens each with different span length or span aspect ratio. In addition, the test results implied that 2D frames could represent the 3D real frames quite accurately. Hence, the conclusions inferred from previously conducted 2D frames tests could prognosticate the real performance of 3D frames.