Investigation of progressive collapse in reinforced concrete buildings with slab-wall structural system

Nowadays, Reinforced Concrete (RC) wall-slab systems are being used more extensively due to their effective performance seen in past earthquakes. Progressive collapse is a phenomenon in which all or part of a structure is damaged due to damage or collapse of a small relevant part. The majority of research done in the field of progressive collapse has been on frame-shaped structures. Further, the performance of RC wall-slab structural systems, especially against progressive collapse, has been less studied. In this study, at first, nine concrete buildings of five, ten and fifteen stories with wall-slab structural systems, with the ratio of spans length to the story height (L/H) of 1, 1.5 and 2 and a structural height of 2.75 meters in each story, were designed by the ETABS V16 software. Then, using the SAP2000 software and nonlinear shell-layered elements, nonlinear static analysis was performed by the Alternative Load Path (ALP) method on the models and the results were evaluated. The results demonstrated the relatively high strength of buildings with wall-slab structural systems in withstanding progressive collapse. The rate of vertical displacement of the removal location, the maximum von Mises stress in rebar, the maximum compressive stress and strain in concrete in the interior wall removal scenarios were less extensively compared to the corner wall removal scenarios. In contrast, progressive collapse potential increased significantly with increasing number of stories and the L/H ratio. Also, it was found that, buildings with the wall-slab structural system may exhibit brittle failure behavior influenced by progressive collapse.