A computational model for full or partial damage of single or multiple adjacent columns in disproportionate collapse analysis via linear programming

The evaluation of the sensitivity or insensitivity of structures to local damage has been a major research field during the last decades, mainly provoked due to the series of aging structures and infrastructures. Many researchers have described this property as redundancy, others as the resistance to disproportionate collapse or robustness and still others as the ability of structural systems to display alternate load paths in case of a local damage. In any case, the problem for the evaluation of this property is increasingly alarming since many systems experience similar collapses (American Society of Civil Engineers (2009). Proceedings of Structures Congress on the first international symposium on disproportionate collapse. ASCE, Austin, TX). This paper presents the numerical assessment of disproportionate collapse analysis introducing the concept of partial damage of structural elements. Global robustness measures are proposed also for the case of multiple partial losses of adjacent elements. The measures are computed on the basis of a mathematical optimisation problem using collapse load analysis of steel frames with pre-existing damage. Results comparing the cases of partial losses with the full column losses are presented and discussed.