Designing Structures to Prevent Progressive Collapse
Scott Wood, PE explains key points of critical considerations regarding structural engineering design implementations to prevent progressive collapse of structures
On April 10, 2012, Macarena Schachter-Adaros, PE and Scott Wood, PE from Weidlinger Associates, Inc. Consulting Engineers' Washington, DC office gave a 2 ½ hour technical presentation on the topic of "Design to Prevent Progressive Collapse" to the Forensic Engineering Group at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

The forensic engineering presentation covered the Department of Defense Unified Facilities Criteria, UFC 4-023-03, 'Design of Buildings to Resist Progressive Collapse,' which provides design guidance that involves local hardening, tie-force methods and alternate path design approaches. These 'threat independent' protective design methods require the engineer to anticipate a collapse mechanism and to develop a strategy to prevent it from propagating. Although seemingly the antithesis of forensic engineering, a design to prevent the propagation of collapse performs a forensic investigation during the design process in an effort to avoid the 'low energy' collapse mechanisms following the formation of initiating damage.

Macarena Schachter-Adaros, PE explains complex dynamic analysis scenarios.

This presentation also described the UFC methods and presented a case history example to demonstrate the application to the retrofit of an existing building.