Progressive Collapse Prevention Design of Framed RC Structures-Cost–Benefit Analysis

Due to the growing occurrence of abnormal or man-made extreme events (such as explosion, landslide, vehicle impact, terrorist attack, etc.), progressive collapse resistance design of structures has become an increasingly important requirement of public and private buildings, especially those of high importance classes. In order to evaluate the cost–benefit of designing against progressive collapse over the conventional seismic design, a numerical study on a framed three-story reinforced concrete (RC) building, with a typical structural system used in hospitals in Portugal, is carried out. The structural seismic design based on the Eurocode CEN 8 seismic design standard and the progressive collapse-resisting provisions based on UFC 4-023-03 standard are considered. According to the obtained results, the seismic resistance design requirements are insufficient for avoiding the progressive collapse of the structure. The findings indicate that the estimated construction costs, based on the current prices in Portugal, taking into account the progressive collapse resistance design requirements, over seismic design, lead to an additional cost of approximately 38%. The obtained results also reveal that the associated construction costs for considering the ALP method requirements is significant compared to Tie Force (TF) and Enhanced Local Resistance (ELR) method.