Progressive collapse resisting capacity of reinforced concrete load bearing wall structures

Reinforced concrete(RC) load bearing wall is widely used in high-rise and mid-rise buildings. Due to the number of walls in plan and reduction in lateral force portion, this system is not only stronger against earthquakes, but also more economical. The effect of progressive collapse caused by removal of load bearing elements, in various positions in plan and stories of the RC load bearing wall system was evaluated by nonlinear dynamic and static analyses. For this purpose, three-dimensional model of 10-story structure was selected. The analysis results indicated stability, strength and stiffness of the RC load-bearing wall system against progressive collapse. It was observed that the most critical condition for removal of load bearing walls was the instantaneous removal of the surrounding walls located at the corners of the building where the sections of the load bearing elements were changed. In this case, the maximum vertical displacement was limited to 6.3 mm and the structure failed after applying the load of 10 times the axial load bored by removed elements. Comparison between the results of the nonlinear dynamic and static analyses demonstrated that the "load factor" parameter was a reasonable criterion to evaluate the progressive collapse potential of the structure.

Advanced Unified Failure Model on Uniformly Reinforced Concrete Box Section Members

Based on the traditional Nielsen model,a unified failure model on the uniformly reinforced concrete box section members under combined forces was introduced by Luo and Liu.One of their contributions is adjustment of the shear carrying capacity of concrete at the member failure surface.In the unified failure model,the comparison with the experimental results verified this adjustment.Nevertheless,it should be pointed out that the adjustment factor of shear carrying capacity at member failure surface for the reinforced concrete members in the unified failure model is a fixed adjustment constant for all experiment data,which is basically determined by curve fitting.However,the adjustment factor should vary with the normal stress at the member failure surface.In this paper,an advanced theoretical model is introduced,in which the adjustment factor of shear carrying capacity at failure surface is a variable related to the normal stress at failure surface.Furthermore,the advanced unified failure model on the uniformly reinforced concrete box section member can still be expressed in a simple form.Finally,the comparison with several groups of test data has verified that this advanced model is more accurate and feasible to be used in design.