Progressive collapse of framed building structures: Current knowledge and future prospects

This paper reviews the state-of-art in progressive collapse studies on framed building structures. Such types of failure start with a local damage which extension increases, up to the whole structure. First, emphasis is placed on the current techniques to study collapse propagation, i.e., numerical, experimental and analytical. In particular, the various numerical methods found in the literature are reported and discussed and the experimental studies and technologies involved in the laboratory tests are listed and compared. As reviewed, the method of analysis depends on the collapse mechanism and the triggering event. Thus, an in-depth review of the collapse typologies is proposed. Pure and mixed progressive collapse mechanisms are discussed and debated. The various triggering events, their modeling and their effects on the framed structures are examined. Details on the available literature on multi-hazard scenarios are provided. Finally, robustness techniques against progressive collapse are summarized, compared and contrasted. The paper concludes with an ambitious comprehensive list of open questions and issues covering different aspects of future needs.