Investigation of Modeling Strategies for Progressive Collapse Analysis of RC Frame Structures

This paper presents a numerical investigation of the reliability and applicability of modeling strategies used to perform progressive collapse analysis of RC structures. Three widely adopted numerical approaches based on displacement-based element (DBE), force-based element (FBE), and macro joint element (MJE) are comprehensively studied. The formulations and characteristics of each strategy are first introduced, and the adopted material constitutive models are then presented and set as the same in different approaches. Some benchmark experiments of RC beam-to-column subassemblages that are subjected to column removal are selected as the reference to validate the three modeling approaches. Finally, influences of several typical modeling parameters in different strategies (e.g., mesh size for the DBE, integration points for the FBE, and bond-slip effect for the MJE) are studied, and some recommendations for a practical numerical modeling procedure are made for progressive collapse analysis of RC structures.