Innovative scheme for RC building progressive collapse prevention

Progressive collapse of reinforced concrete (RC) building due to column failure can cause human casualties and severe irreparable damage or total collapse of the building. Different methods have been presented to mitigated progressive collapse of RC buildings; however, most of them are installed externally after construction and are costly, demanding, and require manufacturing mitigating elements such as steel cables, steel devices, or composites. This study presents an innovative mitigating scheme to improve the progressive collapse resistance of such buildings. The proposed scheme applies during construction and comprises of adding short wasted leftover steel bars from the construction site with special configuration in the slab around potential failed interior column. To examine the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, three-dimensional nonlinear fiber element-based model was developed, validated, and utilized for the analysis of such buildings. The findings of the study show that the proposed scheme improved progressive collapse behavior of the building with a percentage increase in total dissipated energy up to 241.8%. The scheme is eco-efficient and cost effective as it requires minimum amount of material, saves energy required to produce new steel bars, and can serve as an effective solution to mitigate progressive collapse of RC buildings subjected to column failure.