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PROGRESSIVE COLLAPSE PREVENTION IN NEW AND

EXISTING BUILDINGS
A. ASTANEH-ASL
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley 781 Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA,
94720-1710, USA

ABSTRACT: To investigate the viability of a steel cable-based system to prevent progressive collapse of
buildings ten tests were conducted on a full scale specimen of a one story building. One side of the floor in
the specimen had steel cables placed within the floor representing new construction and the other side had
cables placed on the outside as a measure of retrofit of existing buildings. The tests and associated analyses
indicated that the system could economically and efficiently prevent progressive collapse of the floor in the
event of a car bomb attack and removal of one of the exterior columns.

INTRODUCTION

Attacks on Buildings using Explosives

Since 1980’s, a large number of buildings throughout the world have been the target of car bomb attacks. As a result,
more than 3200 innocent people have lost their lives and thousands more have been injured. During past car bomb
attacks, partial or full “progressive” collapse of the building has been the main cause of deaths and injuries. In many
cases, the effect of car bomb explosion has been to knock-out one critical column on the perimeter of the building. After
a column was removed, the load supported by the removed column could not be redistributed to other columns and the
structure or part of the structure has collapsed in a progressive manner. A very tragic example of this case was the
partial collapse of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The structure of Murrah Federal Building before and after the car bomb attack of 1995

In this case, a car bomb exploded near the reinforced concrete building, shattered one exterior column and damaged a
few members in the vicinity of the explosion, Figure 1. Due to loss of this column which was supporting the load from
3 columns above, the weight of the floors above could not be redistributed to adjacent columns or to the rest of the
structure. As a result, the front half of the building collapsed in a progressive manner resulting in loss of lives of 168
innocent people and injury to many more1.

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Protecting Buildings against Car Bomb Attacks

Three main steps to protect buildings against car bomb attacks are shown in Figure 2 and are:

1. Intelligence gathering: By gathering intelligence and information about activities of known terrorist groups
many terrorist attacks have been prevented. This step is of course the most efficient option. However, in many
cases, the attackers are able to keep their plans secret and execute the attack with complete surprise.

2. Access control: By providing barriers near the structure and by preventing the car bomb from being placed
close to the building the damage to the building can be reduced. This solution is also efficient and should be
implemented in critical buildings with high probability of being the target of car bomb attacks. However, in
some cases, the subject building is located in a dense urban area near busy streets and it is not possible to
divert the car traffic away from the building and prevent cars from getting close to the building.

3. Hardening: By hardening the building such that in case of a car bomb explosion near the building, the
catastrophic collapse of the building can be prevented.

This paper focuses on this Step 3 and on testing technologies developed to prevent progressive collapse of buildings in
the event of an external explosion causing loss of one of the main load carrying columns.

Figure 2. Three main steps in protecting buildings against car bomb attacks

Study and Tests of Mechanisms to Prevent Progressive Collapse

In recent years, in the United States, the research and engineering community have increasingly focused on developing
technologies that can harden buildings and prevent their progressive collapse in the event of a car bomb attack. The
challenge is to develop systems and concepts that are economical to implement and do not interfere with the
functionality, aesthetic and architectural aspects of the building. A number of research and development projects have
been funded to address this problem. The main goal of these efforts has been to develop mitigation and protective
measures to reduce the damage and to prevent casualties and major injuries in buildings in the event of terrorist attack
in particular car bomb attacks. Since 1999, three projects in this field have been undertaken by the author and his
research associates at the University of California Berkeley 2, 3, 4. The projects were conducted to test a cable-based
mechanism planned to be used by engineers in buildings to prevent progressive collapse of floors in the event of a car
bomb attack and removal of one of the exterior columns. This paper summarizes these three inter-related projects.

Use of Catenary Action of Cables to Prevent Progressive Collapse of Floors

The concept of hardening a building using catenary action of steel cables consists of placing cables inside the floor slabs
for new construction or adding the cables under the slab for existing structures as a measure of retrofit. The main role of
these cables is to prevent progressive collapse of the floor in the event of loss of one of the columns. In 1998, the
concept of using catenary action of cables in the floors as a hardening measure to prevent progressive collapse was
considered by MKA engineers of Seattle in design of a building. The original developer of the concept is not known to
the author. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the use of cables in the floors to prevent progressive
collapse was first proposed in 1996 by Dr. Joseph Penzien, professor emeritus of the University of California at
Berkeley in the aftermath of the Murrah Federal Building collapse.

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Figure 3 shows the application of this concept in a building. When a single column is removed and the floor starts to
collapse, the catenary action of the cable prevents the collapse and transfers the load of the floor to neighboring
columns and rest of the structures. Since cables are used in every floor, the loads of all floors above the removed
column will be transferred to the adjacent columns. As a result, although the floors might have relatively large
deformations in the order of 40-60 centimeters, the full progressive collapse and pan-caking of the floors are prevented.

Figure 3. A typical floor with cable before and after removal of middle column

Design and Construction of Test Specimen

To test the performance of floors reinforced with steel cables, a full size one story building was designed and
constructed. The structural engineers from MKA designed the specimen to simulate a portion of a typical braced frame
steel structure. Figure 4 shows plan view and a cross section of the test specimen. The north side of the specimen had
steel cables inside the floor slab similar to what will be done in a new construction. The south side of the floor in the
test specimen did not have the cables. This side of specimen was tested first as a representative of typical modern steel
structures without hardening. These tests are denoted as Group II tests in Table 1. After completion of these tests, minor
damage to the slab was repaired, the beam connections that were damaged during previous tests were replaced with new
shear tab connections and the retrofit cables added. The specimen at this time represented an existing building
retrofitted by adding cables to it under the floor slab. The cables as a measure of retrofit were added to increase the
resistance of floors to progressive collapse. The added cables are shown in Figure 4 along the south side of the building.

The structural framing to carry the gravity load consisted of steel frames with simple shear connections in both
directions supporting a concrete slab floor cast on the steel corrugated decks. The concrete slab of the floor had only a
negligible amount of reinforcement to prevent shrinkage cracks. However, within about one meter width of the slab,
where the steel cables were placed, larger reinforcing bars were used. On one side of the specimen -North side in Figure
4- four steel cables, each 32mm in diameter, were placed on top of the top flange of the steel beams within the concrete
floor slab. The main purpose of these cables, as mentioned earlier, was to prevent progressive collapse of the floor in
the event of removal of column C1 in Figure 4. For more information and for details of test specimen and test set-up the
reader is referred to the final report of the project2.

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Figure 4. Full-scale test specimen

Construction of test specimen was done in a way similar to what is done in the United States in constructing typical
office buildings with steel structure. The main steps taken in the construction were:

1. The steel members of the structure were fabricated and delivered to UC laboratory.
2. The structure was erected inside Davis Hall laboratory
3. The steel corrugated deck was added and welded to the top flange of the steel beams.
4. The steel cables were placed on top of the steel deck along the north side frame (Fig. 4).
5. The steel mesh reinforcement was placed on steel deck. The rebars within the one meter width on the north
side of the slab were placed.
6. The normal weight concrete was placed on the steel deck.

Test Procedure
Each test consisted of preparing the specimen, removing the lower portion of one of the middle columns, either C1 or
C2 in Figure 4, and using two actuators connected to top of the column to push down the column. It should be
mentioned that after removing the lower portion of the column, the weight of the floor slab supported by this column
would naturally push the floor down. However, the weight of the slab was only part of the total load that would be
present in an actual building.

The total load would include weight of the non-structural elements as well as live load due to weight of the occupants
and the furniture. To create a realistic load pushing Point C1 down, two 60 ton actuators connected to top of the test
columns were used. After removal of the lower portion of the middle column (either C1 or C2 in Figure 4), the actuators
were used to push the column down with a constant velocity of 6mm/second until a prescribed level of displacement
was reached.
Table 1 provides the tests done on the specimen, levels of displacement as well as the force in the column C1 or C2
after removal of its lower portion.

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Pre-Test Analyses of the Specimen

Prior to tests, comprehensive nonlinear finite element analyses of the specimen were conducted to predict behavior of
the floor upon removal of the middle column2. For the North side frame, where steel cables were placed inside the floor,
the analyses indicated that if the middle column C1 in Figure 4 is removed, the floor will start moving downward due to
acceleration of gravity and will stop after dropping about 53 centimeters, Figure 5. The reason for the floor to stop
moving downward is the development of catenary tension force in the cables and steel deck floor as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Drop of floor and development of catenary force

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EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
A total of ten tests in three different groups were conducted on the specimen. The tests are given in Table 1. The first
group of three tests was conducted on the north side of the specimen where steel cables were placed inside the floor
slab. The second group of three tests were conducted on the south side where there was no cable used. The last group of
three tests was conducted on the south side also, but, prior to testing; two steel cables were placed on the side of steel
beams along the Axis 2 in Figure 4 and tied at the end to the end columns. The structure with cables added represented
the condition of an existing building after retrofit.

Group I Tests: North Side of Specimen with Cables Placed inside the Floor
The first test on the north side was done by removing Column C1 and pushing the floor at the location of this column 48
centimeters down. The finite element analyses conducted earlier2 had indicated that Column C1 will move downward
53 centimeters under the design dead and live load before coming to a stop. Figure 7 shows the displacement of column
C1 downward versus the load in the column during the test. The “dents” on the curve in Figure 7 indicate local failure
which primarily consisted of failure of bolts in the connections, shown in Figure 8, and local buckling of the web of the
beams. The specimen during the subsequent three tests of this group (i.e. column drop of 53, 61 and 89) behaved more
or less in the same manner as the first test. The maximum load that the cable system could tolerate at the end of 89
centimeter drop test was about 3.1 times the design load as shown in Table 1.

Group II Tests: South Side of Specimen without any Cables

The first test on the south side of the specimen, which did not have cables, was done by removing Column C2 and
pushing the floor at the location of this column 48 centimeters down. Since this side did not have cable, when the floor
started moving downward, the only resistance to collapse was catenary forces developed in the beams on Axis 2 and in
the steel corrugated deck. Due to development of catenary force in the beams, the shear connections at the ends of the
beams were subjected to a combination of shear and axial load as well as large rotations. The welds and edge distances
on the connections fractured and the system barely was able to support the design load as indicated in the last column of
Table 1 with ratio of maximum load /design load of 1.2.

Group III Tests: South Side of Specimen with Cables Added as Retrofit
After finishing Group II tests on the south side, the specimen was retrofitted and two 20 mm diameter steel cables were
added to the side of the beams along Axis 2, Figure 4. As Table 1 indicates the column drops in these three tests were
56, 56 and 89 cm. Figure 9 shows the specimen at the end of the last test of this group4. The main damage to the
specimen was in the form of failure of edge distance of the end shear tab connections as well as weld fracture of one
shear tab. The specimen was able to tolerate about 1.5 times the design load.

Figure 7. Downward movement of column versus load in the column for north side with cables

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Figure 8. Downward movement of column and damage to connection

Figure 9. Deflected but not collapsed shape of the retrofitted specimen and the connection

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the performance of full-scale specimen during the tests and the associated analyses, the following conclusions
were reached:

(1) By using steel cables in the floor slabs of steel structures progressive collapse of steel structures could be
easily and economically prevented.

(2) The existing buildings can also be retrofitted to prevent their progressive collapse upon removal of one
column. The retrofit system consisting of cables placed on the side of steel beams could efficiently prevent
progressive collapse of the floors when a column is removed.

(3) The specimen without the cable could resist a load 1.2 times the design load. However, in other situations, the
use of cables or other mechanisms to increase resistance to progressive collapse is recommended.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The projects summarized here were sponsored by the General Services Administration, MKA Engineers, American
Institute of Steel Construction and the National Science Foundation of the United States of America.

REFERENCES
1. ASCE, “The Oklahoma City Bombing: Improving Building Performance Through Multi-Hazard Mitigation”,
Report FEMA 277. FEMA Mitigation Directorate, Reston Virginia. 1996.

2. A. Astaneh-Asl, E. A. Madsen, C. Noble, R. Jung, D. McCallen, M.S. Hoehler, W. Li and R. Hwa, “Use of
Catenary Cables to Prevent Progressive Collapse of Buildings”, Report Number UCB/CEE-Steel-2001/02,
Dept. of Civil and Env. Engrg., Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, 2002.

3. A. Astaneh-Asl, B. Jones, Y. Zhao and R. Hwa, “Progressive Collapse Resistance of Steel Building Floors”,
Report Number UCB/CEE-Steel-2001/03, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering., University of
California, Berkeley.

4. S. Tan and A. Astaneh-Asl, “Testing a Retrofit Concept to Prevent Progressive Collapse”, Report Number
UCB/CEE-Steel-2003/02, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering., University of California, Berkeley.

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