Experimental and Analytical Collapse Evaluation of an Existing Building

This research investigates the progressive collapse vulnerability of an existing steel building, Haskett Hall, on the Ohio State University (OSU) campus. The building was tested by removing one of the first-story columns to observe its collapse resistance. Progressive collapse is a partial or complete collapse of a structure due to the loss of a supporting element, a column in this case. Few researchers have been able to conduct full-scale experiments to understand progressive collapse. One previous OSU study tested the vulnerability for progressive collapse of a steel frame building in Northbrook, Illinois, and another steel building on the OSU campus. It was concluded that more detailed models are needed to account for nonlinearity, three-dimensional and dynamic effects in analysis of a building frame including beams and columns surrounding the removed column. To address these issues, in this research deflections and strains within the neighboring beams and columns were measured during column removal. A structural analysis program, SAP2000, is used to run linear static and nonlinear dynamic analysis to predict building response, which is then compared to the measured data. The goal of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of geometric and modeling assumptions of two-dimensional and three-dimensional models in analyzing a historic steel building for progressive collapse. By following the General Services Administration (2003 and 2013), Haskett Hall was calculated to satisfy strength and stiffness requirements to prevent progressive collapse.