The behaviour of precast concrete building to resist progressive collapse

• Main Author: Lim, Wei Kai
• Other Authors: Li Bing
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Structures and design
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71186
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Throughout the past century, there have been numerous structural collapse incidents all over the world. Progressive collapse is one of the most devastating types of structural collapse, usually resulting in hefty damages, serious injuries and even possibly endangering people’s life. This prompts research works into improving the toughness of building structures in a bid to mitigate progressive collapse. This study examines the effects of connection types on the behaviour of precast concrete (PC) structures and its ability to mitigate progressive collapse. In this study, three one-third scaled beam-slab substructures comprising of a cast-in-place reinforced concrete (RC) specimen and two PC specimens are tested under pushdown loading regime. The PC slabs and PC beams are connected by a special link, which has been designed to improve the connection between them. This report presents the test results, which include the load-displacement curve, ultimate load capacity, ultimate deformation capacity and local strain. Thereafter, it discusses on the failure mode and mechanisms of load redistribution. From the test results, it is conclusive that the PC specimen with welded connections achieved brittle failure with the lowest ultimate load capacity and deformation capacity. The PC specimen with pinned connections has a large rotational ability which ensured that the specimen failed in a ductile manner, allowing substantial tensile membrane actions to develop in the topping layer even though the specimen has the lowest initial stiffness and has already achieved its first peak load capacity. Despite severe separation occurring between the PC slabs and beams, even at the maximum displacement of more than double that of the beam span, no PC slab collapsed.