Enhanced external progressive collapse mitigation scheme for RC structures

This paper discusses enhancement of an external mitigating scheme to maximise the resistance of reinforced concrete continuous beams to progressive collapse due to interior support failure. The mitigating scheme using external unbounded fibre reinforced plastic straight cables and a relevant numerical model were presented by the authors in a published companion paper to predict the progressive collapse resistance of the mitigated beams. This study extends the previous work to efficiently enhance the resistance of mitigated beams by inspecting different mitigating scheme setups. Straight and deviated cable profiles are considered, different cable deviator locations are examined, and different cable deviations are accounted for to compare the corresponding mitigated beam resistance enhancements. The mitigating scheme setup that provides maximum increase in the beam resistance is considered the enhanced setup that efficiently maximises the increase in the mitigated beam resistance and could economically prevent progressive collapse of beams due to interior column failure.