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Robust Buildings in Australia

Colin Gurley TAFENSW Sydney Institute of Technology, Ultimo 2007 Colin.Gurley@me.com

Synopsis: This paper grew out of a study-tour to Chicago in April 2006, a few months after
publication of the NIST Study on the 911 attack on the World Trade Center. The five events precedent to this paper were: (1)Accidental domestic kitchen gas-stove explosion at Ronan Point, UK 1968 destroyed a 22-storey precast concrete apartment building; (2)The 1995 terrorist truck-bomb attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City; (3)The 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center Towers, New York; (4)Fire 2005 35-storey Windsor Building, Madrid. Zero fatalities!; and (5) Fire 2005 50-storey Government Building, Venezuela. Zero fatalities! This paper deals with three issues: (1) Fire: is it an issue for structural engineers and should buildings be designed to burn-out without collapse even if sprinklers fail? (2) Ductile detailing: how earthquake detailing can drastically improve resistance to accidental/terrorist explosions. (3) Lost column analysis: a column, lost to accidental explosion, terrorist attack or earthquake, should not lead to collapse that is disproportionate/progressive. Australian standards have mentioned robustness since soon after the Ronan Point event. These rules, currently at AS/NZS1170.0s6 are bare-bones statements of principle. The present purpose is to put some flesh on them.

Keywords: Ronan Point, World Trade Center, Murrah Building Oklahoma, fire, ductility, earthquake Fire at the World Trade Center 2001
Fire following the attack at the World Trade Center has been described in FEMA403/ASCE(1), NIST2005(2), in Gurley(3,4,5) and in the Extended Abstract to this paper. NIST seems clear that: Dislodgement of the thermal insulation (SFRM) in the debris path of the aircraft impact was an essential condition for the collapses of both towers: o The WTC towers would likely not have collapsed under the combined effects of aircraft impact damage and the extensive, multistory fires that were encountered on September 11, 2001 if the thermal insulation had not been widely dislodged or had been only minimally dislodged by aircraft impact. NIST2005, pp. 176, 185 Dislodgement of thermal insulation in the debris path at the impact floors was caused by the aluminium shrapnel debris created by the impact: o Wider dislodgement at other floors above and below the impact zone probably occurred due to the shaking caused by the impact but o The shrapnel dislodgement in the debris path of impact zone (several storeys) was, of itself alone, sufficient to cause collapse when combined with the simultaneous structural damage and the multistory fires NIST2005, p. 178 ; and The physical condition of the insulation before impact was not an important issue: o Some localized substandard thicknesses including zero thickness caused by locally careless application and/or dislodgement during adjacent building maintenance may have existed but did not substantially affect the outcome.

NIST recommended the following far-reaching changes: Recommendation 8. NIST recommends that the fire resistance of structures be enhanced by requiring a performance objective that uncontrolled building fires result in burnout without partial or global total collapse. Such a provision should recognize that sprinklers could be compromised, nonoperational, or nonexistent NIST2005, page 211 ; and Recommendation 9. NIST recommends the development of: (1) performance-based standards and code provisions, as an alternative to current prescriptive design methods, to enable the design and retrofit of structures to resist real building fire conditions, including their ability to achieve the performance objective of burnout without structural or local floor collapse and (2) the tools, guidelines, and test methods necessary to evaluate the fire performance of the structure as a whole system. Standards development organizations, including the American Institute of Steel Construction, have already begun developing performance-based provisions to consider the effects of fire in structural design NIST2005, p. 211

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NIST does not believe that buildings should be designed for aircraft impact NIST2005, p. 216 . NIST seems to suggest that, for future projects, burnout should be demonstrated by a structural disproportionate collapse analysis for fire perhaps including lost column elements. That structural analysis has to assume that sprinklers will have failed. The sprinkler assumption does help to simplify issues by separating structural responsibilities from those related to the sprinkler system. Reliability of SFRMs will be crucial; SFRMs must work even if, particularly if, sprinklers fail. Structural analysis for fire is still in its infancy and the NIST investigation has had to cobble together three separate software packages: The Fire Dynamics Simulator can predict the room temperatures and heat release rate values for complex fires to within 20% when the building geometry, fire ventilation, and combustibles are properly described NIST2005, p. 184 ; The Fire Structure Interface, developed for this investigation, mapped the fire-generated temperature and thermal radiation fields onto and through layered structural materials to within the accuracy of the fire-generated fields and the thermophysical data for the structural components NIST2005, p. 184 ; and Structural analysis software ANSYS 8.0 finite-element program.

It will take some time for an integrated software package to cover all of this and unresolved research issues may emerge in the process. In the meantime it seems appropriate to focus on the fireprotection of structural elements: core walls and steel beams and faade columns.

Fire Rating of Structural Connections

The provisions that were used for the WTC towers did not require specification of a fire-rating requirement for connections separate from those for the connected elements. The Investigation Team was unable to determine the fire rating of a connection where the connected elements had different fire ratings, and whether the applied insulation achieved that rating. NIST2005, p. 198

Sprayed Fire-Resisting Materials (SFRMs)

Recommendation 6. NIST recommends the development of criteria, test methods, and standards: (1) for the in-service performance of SFRMs also commonly referred to as fireproofing or insulation used to protect structural components; and (2) to ensure that these materials, as installed, conform to conditions in tests used to establish the fire resistance rating of components, assemblies, and systems. This should include the following: 1. Improved criteria and testing methodology for the performance and durability of SFRM e.g., adhesion, cohesion, abrasion, and impact resistance under in-service exposure conditions e.g., temperature, humidity, vibration, impact, with/without primer paint on steel for use in acceptance and quality control; and 2. Inspection procedures, including measurement techniques and practical conformance criteria for SFRM in both the building codes and fire codes for use after installation, renovation, or modification of all mechanical and electrical systems and by fire inspectors over the life of the building. NIST2005, pp. 210, 211. There is discussion on SFRM reliability in America now including an article in the New York Times 9 September 2008. The perceived issue is not just whether SFRMs are successful in laboratory testfurnaces but whether they will be robust enough to resist dislodgement during any abnormal event. Clearly the SFRM materials used at WTC were not sufficiently robust to resist dislodgement during the 2001 attack and this did lead directly to the collapses. Alas NISTIR7563 of 2009 (6), the draft Best Practice Guidelines does not seem to have addressed this issue yet. Even though NIST does not believe that buildings should be designed for aircraft impact, it would nevertheless be relevant and interesting to see the outcome of tests simulating aircraft attack by a storm of aluminium fragments sprayed, as debris shrapnel at aircraft speeds, at comparable structural elements of steel-framed buildings and concrete-framed buildings. Would 20 mm, or more, concrete cover resist dislodgement more effectively than current SFRMs? This author is not aware that any such tests have been done.

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NIST on Core Walls

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The functional integrity and survivability of the stairwells was affected by the separation of the stairwells and the structural integrity of stairwell enclosures. The shaft enclosures were fire rated but were not required to have structural integrity under typical accidental loadsthere were numerous reports of stairwells obstructed by fallen debris from damaged enclosures. NIST2005, p. 177 Analysis indicated that the aircraft impact rupture of large return air shafts and related ductwork created a major path for vertical smoke spread in the towers. NIST2005, p. 188 At the time of the design and construction of the WTC towers, there were no explicit minimum structural integrity provisions for the means of egress stairwells and elevator shafts in the building core that were critical to life safety. The building core, generally designed to be part of the vertical gravity load-carrying system of the structure, need not be part of the lateral load-carrying system of the structure In the case of the WTC towers, the core had 2 h fire-rated, gypsum partition walls with little structural integrity, and the core framing was required to carry only gravity loads. Had there been a minimum structural integrity requirement to satisfy normal building and fire safety considerations, it is conceivable that the damage to stairways, especially at the floors of impact, may have been less extensive. NIST2005, p. 195 Recommendation 18. NIST recommends that egress systems be designed: 2 to maintain their functional integrity and survivability under foreseeable building-specific or large-scale emergencies... 1. Within a safety-based design hierarchy that should be developed, highest priority should be assigned to maintain the functional integrity, survivability, and remoteness of egress components and active fire protection systems sprinklers, standpipes, associated water supply, fire alarms, and smoke management systems NIST2005 p. 216 ; 2. The design, functional integrity, and survivability of the egress and other life safety systems e.g., stairwell and elevator shafts and active fire protection systems should be enhanced by considering accidental structural loads such as those induced by overpressures e.g., gas explosions , impacts, or major hurricanes and earthquakes, in addition to fire separation requirements. In selected buildings, structural loads due to other risks such as those due to terrorism may need to be considered. While NIST does not believe that buildings should be designed for aircraft impact, as the last line of defense for life safety, the stairwells and elevator shafts individually, or the core if these egress components are contained within the core, should have adequate structural integrity to withstand accidental structural loads and anticipated risks; and 3. Stairwell remoteness requirements should be met by a physical separation of the stairwells that provide a barrier to both fire and accidental structural loads.... NIST 2005 p. 216 It seems obvious that load-bearing concrete cores, as usually used in Australian practice with 200 minimum thick walls and N12 minimum rebar each way each face, would amply provide a minimum structural integrity requirement to satisfy normal building and fire safety considerations, such that it is conceivable that the damage to stairways, especially at the floors of impact, may have been less extensive. NIST2005, p. 195. It is difficult to think of any alternative construction or material capable of comparable performance. Concrete cores will also better protect active fire services, risers for water and for alarm/communication systems and reduce the vertical spread of smoke to higher stories.

Ductile detailing of strong-column/weak-beam buildings

Earthquake engineering was re-invented from 1972, in New Zealand and in California, because of disappointing performance in the Alaska earthquake of 1964 and the Los Angeles (San Fernando) earthquake of 1971. Even so, there were then still occasional articles from well-meaning (and quite eminent) American engineers suggesting that a soft bottom story was a good thing! This authors 1972 memory is that SEAOC had already adopted a strong-column/weak-beam provision to the effect that, at every beam/column joint, the total column bending strength (above + below) must be 20% larger than the total beam bending strength (left + right). This was certainly a major step in the right direction. It may have been simplistic in the sense that the important thing was/is to prevent soft-storey failures in which all of the post-elastic strain energy is concentrated into one or a small number of storeys. A more advanced approach looks at storey strength rather than individual columns and seeks sufficient strong-columns to prevent a soft-storey failure. Of course most shear-walls are (very) strong columns in one or both directions so the use of a shear-wall/core almost automatically prevents soft-storey failures. Note however that special ductile detailing of weak columns is essential so that they do continue to carry vertical loads.

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Nevertheless this paper will focus on strong-column/weak-beam buildings in which each column is stronger than the immediately adjacent beams. This is relevant because (see Extended Abstract) ASCE has concluded that ductile detailing would have increased the cost of the Oklahoma Building by 1 2% and reduced the extent of collapse by 80%.

Collapse mechanisms for moment-resisting frames

Figs 1 to 3 show the usual three skeletal collapse mechanisms for beams in multi-storey buildings. The plastic hinges are indicated by black circles: Sag = Tension-bottom yield Hog = Tension-top yield

All of the plastic hinges are in the beams rather than columns as discussed in strong-column/weakbeam buildings above. The present author has written elsewhere (7,8) about how these mechanisms can be modified with dogleg hinges so as to provide for the exact rigid-plastic yield-line design of reinforcement in concrete beams for bending and for shear.

Figure 1 Gravity load only

Figure 2 Wind/Earthquake-dominated beam with reduced gravity load

Figure 3 Gravity-dominated beam with wind/earthquake

Bottom rebar at columns and other supports

The first and most important issue in ductile detailing is that of continuity of bottom rebars at supports, particularly intermediate supports. This is discussed in more detail in Gurley(3). For lost column situations, the first question is whether there is some stronger structure at higher levels as there clearly was at the World Trade Center (the hat trusses). On the other hand, there are many buildings which approximate a typical floor building in which every floor needs to support itself. This is discussed in much more detail in USGSA2003(9) and in Gurley(10,11). At each floor above a lost column the span will have doubled and locations directly above the lost column will now be mid-span regions. If there is no beam bottom rebar at each floor above the lost column then there will an un-reinforced section with zero strength and zero ductility.

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AS3600:2001 requires only that 25% of mid-span bottom rebars continue some distance (say 50 mm) past the face of support unless, of course there is a calculated nett positive moment under the design lateral load combination. The corresponding clause of ACI 318 draws a distinction for beams that are part of a primary lateral load resisting system for which bottom rebars should be fully anchored beyond the column face regardless of the theoretical design moment combination whether tension-top or tension-bottom. This writer believes that this matter reflects a long-standing oversight in AS3600. If the moment caused by, say, the 500-year wind as the design wind load is less than the moment caused by 90% of the dead load then there need be no effective bottom rebars at columns. But the 10,000-year wind load may be up to 150% of the 500-year wind. What then? There is no tensionbottom ductility if there is no effective bottom rebar! And this for a pulsating load? The situation with earthquake is much worse. The 10,000-year earthquake may be 290% (NZS1170.5) of the 500-year earthquake but the designer of a frame of ordinary ductility can still reduce the design moment to just 38% (1/2.6) of the 500-year value. Thus the 10,000-year earthquake moment can be 7.5 (2.9*2.6) times the gravity load (0.9G) moment. And still there need be no effective bottom rebar! And again there will be no ductility for an un-reinforced section especially under alternating load. And perhaps the ratio 10,000-years/500-years is greater in Australia because the 500-year figures are already so low in this intra-plate region. Finally one should note that bottom-rebars at supports can also act as compression reinforcement if properly restrained from buckling (with ties) thereby improving ductility under tension-top moments.

Special ductile design for beams of ductile frames

The AS/NZS1170 gravity load for Fig 1 is (1.2 G + 1.5Q ) where the live load Q may be subject to an area reduction but not a duration reduction. The stress-resultants, moment and shear-force are those determined by the above load with whatever plastic redistribution designer selects. A designer can use redistribution ( < 30%) to maximize the extent of design repetition within a project in order to reduce design and construction costs. The design is subject to the usual reliability (strength reduction) factors: ( bending = 0.80; shear = 0.70) .

( < 30% for ku < 0.20) the

The gravity loads for Figs 2 and 3 are OR(0.9G , G + cQ ) and the, say, 500-year earthquake is

( Eu ) . Redistribution, ( < 30%) , and reliability factors are then applied. The selection of longitudinal
rebar carried is carried out but after that the design approach changes. The moment capacities are calculated for the as-to-be-drawn longitudinal rebar using an over-strength factor in the range ( longitudinal over-strength = 1.25 to 1.5) depending on the code. The over-strength factor is meant to include rebar over-strength as-supplied but also the effects of strain-hardening. The gravity load is maintained at OR(0.9G , G + cQ ) but the earthquake load is varied so that a mechanism occurs. Shear reinforcement is then designed with a reliability factor depending on the code.

( = 0.70 - 1.0) again

Longitudinal rebar in special ductile beams

There seems to be general agreement that the minimum reinforcement in beams produce a bending strength with a small (say 20%) margin over the un-reinforced cracking moment. In AS3600:2001, this minimum only applies at critical sections. Elsewhere, subject to bond and anchorage, it can be just a fraction of that. The major earthquake codes want to apply this minimum content at all points, top and bottom along the length of the beam presumably on the reasoning that a plastic hinge can occur anywhere under earthquake load. This writer has always preferred a content of tension rebar leading to a neutral axis depth parameter

ku 0.20 with, where appropriate, allowance for compression reinforcement. This is, indeed,
somewhat conservative. He is of the view that larger beams, lightly reinforced are more economic than

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tiny beams, crammed with rebar that requires steel-fixers to emulate watch-makers.

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The longitudinal rebar: At midspan bottom will be about half of the top rebar at supports At supports bottom again about half of the top rebar at supports At midspan top will be about the minimum content described above Laps are prohibited within a support, within (2d) of the ends of a beam or within (2d) of any mid-span plastic hinge as in Fig 3. In general the top splice will be towards mid-span from the quarter-span position and the bottom splice towards the support from the quarter-span position. There is not much room so one has to do the best one reasonably can. The maximum diameter of longitudinal rebars is the parallel support/column dimension/20, that is 20 maximum rebars through a 400 column. These bars are yielding in tension on one column face and heavily stressed or yielding in compression on the other and this does imply higher bond-stresses than the clauses on bond and anchorage.

Shear reinforcement details

ACI-318-Ch21 defines a hoop as a closed tie or a spiral. In either case the ties may be made of several pieces so long as every piece terminates with a 145 or 180 seismic hook. 90 degree hooks were permitted by AS3600, as one remembers, in the 1980s but are now illegal because the cover shell concrete outside the tie spalls under overload and 90 degree hooks are then un-anchored. All hooks on ties and stirrups must now bend through 135 or 180 degrees so that they are anchored inside the confined core concrete. ACI-318-Ch21 does permit 90 degree hooks at one end only of interior cross-ties which must alternate position on successive cross-ties; this is a concession to steelfixing problems.

Shear reinforcement in beams

Under ACI-318 Ch 21, closed hoops are required: At laps Within (2d) of the support face Within (2d) of any mid-span hinge as in Fig 3. The maximum spacing in the zones above is:

MIN ( d / 4,8 * dbarlongitudinal ,24 * dbarhoop ,100 at lap-splices, 300 elsewhere)

One cannot imagine that one needs spacings < 100 even if d < 400 but that is what the ACI code Ch21 requires. Elsewhere stirrups (not necessarily hoops) are spaced at maximum ( d / 2) ; although there may not be much significant elsewhere. For wider beams, every second rebar across the width should have a cross-tie at a maximum cross-section spacing of 350. This shear reinforcement should also be sufficient for the shear strength described above. There is no ACI-318-Ch21 minimum content so that falls back on the general provisions for shear strength. This writer has written elsewhere about design for shear (7,8). He believes that the AS3600 minimum smeared yield-strength of 0.35 MPa is too low.

Columns in moment-resisting frames

Columns are divided into 2 zones: Confined zones are at each end for a length =

MAX D, b, Ln / 6,450 but the full height if the

column is not 20% stronger in bending strength than the directly attached beams. The NZS3101 strength enhancement is quite a lot more than 20%. The lesser confined remainder.

Shear reinforcement for confined zones should be closed hoops which, in each direction provide a smeared tensile yield strength as a confining pressure of:

Ag Ag 1) = MAX 2.25,0.75 1) MPa for f c = 25 MPa MAX 0.09 f c,0.03 f c Ach Ach

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where Ag = Gross area of column and Ach = Confined area of column measured to outside of ties. Note that these values are much larger than the current AS3600 figure of 0.35 MPa for minimum shear reinforcement. There were similar provisions in past editions of AS3600 at a time when AS3600 recognized that spirally reinforced circular columns were inherently superior to tied columns. Indeed the strength of the confined core of such columns were then considered to be increased by a term 4.1 p where p = Confining pressure provided by spiral reinforcement. To the best of this authors knowledge, this provision was correct but was lost in some code rewrite. There is no suggestion in ACI-318-Ch21 that beam hinge zones be similarly confined but this authors memory is that there may be in NZS3101. The maximum spacing for shear reinforcement in confined zones is:

MIN D / 4, b / 4,6 dblo n g itudinal ,100 for cross-tie spacing = 350, 150 for cross-tie spacing 200
and that elsewhere is: MIN

(6dbar

longitudinal

,150

Beam-column joints in ductile frames

The shear-strength of beam-column joints is still a major issue. The beam longitudinal bars are expected to exceed yield-strength on one face in tension and on the opposite face in compression. Column size shall be >= 20 times the diameter of longitudinal beam rebars in the same direction. Confinement reinforcement ranges down to half of that mentioned above for confined zones. The fact that columns may face a biaxial attack from diagonal earthquakes does not seem to have been adequately considered; how can beams that are driving the shear force into the column adequately confine it? Beam-column joints are open to theoretical study using this authors dogleg hinge method for the collapse-mechanism solution of plane-stress problems (7,8).

Ductile shear-walls/cores
Many Australian concrete cores approximate thin-walled RHS (rectangular hollow sections) with numerous internal walls and numerous openings crossed by coupling beams. Columns in tall buildings are not normally ductile in the sense, say, that the neutral axis depth ratio

ku < 0.20 under the maximum abnormal event co-incident vertical gravity load. Shear walls/cores
can and, arguably should be ductile in that same sense. This does imply that each leg of the perimeter wall of the RHS, acting as a compression flange under different lateral load-directions, should be able to carry most of the maximum abnormal event gravity load (not the full design gravity load) plus the bending compression force for all of the rebar elsewhere acting in bending tension. This may be a controversial view but this author does not see how one can otherwise claim a full ductility reduction for a shear core when the neutral axis depth is much deeper. This may involve increasing the thickness of RHS perimeter walls to 300 - 400 or more. It does not help to increase the compression-rebar in such flanges because this will increase the area of rebar in tension when the lateral load reverses. This increased thickness can be limited, say to the height of a plastic hinge up from the base. At the base of a tall building, there is often some spare space in the vertical air ducts that can be used for this purpose. The coupling-beams over openings including doors to stairs and lifts will usually fall within the ACI318-Ch21 definition of deep coupling-beams as L / D < 4 . In this regard ACI-318Ch21 follows NZS3101 and requires tied-column cages on both diagonals. This writer is quite certain that this will provide ductility in many situations that may be otherwise have been rather brittle. The author is not yet certain that this is always necessary in Australia; he has written on this and does intend to update those writings (13). The shear-strength of thin-wall RHS sections with multiple parallel webs is one that has barely been mentioned in the literature. It is an aspect that this author does mean to address. Shear-walls are, in the first instance, just large cantilever beams and the first objective is that they yield in flexure rather than shear. There will be many squat walls in low-rise buildings for which that may be impossible and

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many other tall buildings in which the shear is shared over 3 or 4 parallel webs.

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Lost column Analysis

Lost column analysis is required under UK Approved Document A3 on Disproportionate Collapse (14) and USGSA2003 (9). The purpose is to prove that a disproportionate/progressive collapse will not occur if a column is removed by an accidental explosion or by a terrorist attack. In important cases, this will require a non-linear finite element analysis. However this authors bimoment method can be used for quick hand calculations of yield-line bending strength excluding catenary action (10,11,12). This seems appropriate particularly for corner columns.

Conclusions
This paper has considered three issues relating to the robustness of buildings: fire, ductile detailing, and lost column analysis. For fire, the major conclusions for structural engineers follow from the NIST recommendations that: Structural engineers take responsibility for structural collapse including collapse during fire and That buildings should be designed to burn-out without collapse even if sprinklers fail and That fire may coincide with a lost column event where columns are lost to accidental explosions, to terrorist-attacks or to earthquake. That SFRMs need regular inspection, once a new standard has emerged, to ensure that they are likely to survive abnormal events in a condition good enough to do their job. For existing buildings, such an inspection could take place whenever a floor is vacated with some upper limit, say at 25 years. Ductile detailing determines the ability of a building to respond to an abnormal event in a benign way. It is an issue quite separate from (and arguably more important than) the determination of design lateral load. This writer has long believed that some minimum standard of ductile detailing should be determined by the Building Importance as defined in BCA. He reached that conclusion while inspecting the damage from the San Fernando earthquake 1971 and he is encouraged that the FEMA227/ASCE 1996 report (15) on the Oklahoma City bombing reaches similar conclusions. Lost column analysis seeks to show that the loss of a column whether by accidental explosion, terrorist bomb or earthquake will not cause a collapse that is disproportionate or progressive. Analytical methods include: Non-linear finite element analysis and The bimoment method which does yield-line analysis by hand of the slab including intervening beams treated as torsion-free grillages.(10,11,12)

References
1. FEMA403/ASCE May 2002: World Trade Center Building Performance Study. Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington 2. NIST2005 . Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers. Final Rep., National Institute of Standards & Technology, NIST NCSTAR1, Washington, D.C. 3. Gurley, C.R. Protecting life and reducing damage in earthquakes and terrorist attacks. AEES06 Conference: Earthquake Engineering in Australia, Canberra, 24-26 November 2006. Downloadable from <www.aees.org.au> 4. Gurley, C.R. Progressive Collapse and Earthquake Resistance. Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, ASCE Virginia, February 2008. Republished in Concrete in Australia, December 2008 5. Gurley, C.R. Structural Design for Fire in Tall Buildings. Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, ASCE Virginia, May 2008. 6. NISTIR 7563: 2009. DRAFT for Public Comments. Best Practice Guidelines for Structural Fire Resistance Design of Concrete and Steel Buildings. US Department of Commerce. Feb 2009. 7. Gurley, C.R. 2008. Plastic shear strength of continuous reinforced beams. New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering Conference, Wairakei April 2008. 8. Gurley, C.R. Collapse-Mechanism Design of Ordinary Concrete Beams for Shear. Submitted for publication May 2009.

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9. USGSA June 2003 Progressive Collapse Analysis and Design Guidelines for New Federal Office Buildings, General Services Administration, Office of the Chief Architect, Washington. 10. Gurley, C.R. Concrete plasticity in structural design practice. Magazine of Concrete Research, Thomas Telford Ltd, ICE London. October 2008. 11. Gurley, C.R. Plastic disproportionate collapse at lost corner columns. Magazine of Concrete Research, Thomas Telford Ltd, ICE London. February 2009. 12. Gurley, C.R. Plastic Yield-line Analysis of Torsion-Free Flat Slabs. ASEC2008, Melbourne June 2008. Extended and republished Australian Journal of Structural Engineering, Online 2009. 13. Gurley, C.R. Core Coupling-Beams in Tall Buildings AEES07 Conference, Wollongong 2007. Downloadable from www.aees.org.au 14. Approved Document A 2004 A3 Disproportionate Collapse; The Building Regulations 2000, London. Downloadable from http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/ Click on Professional User; Click on Building Regulations; Click on Technical Guidance; Click on Part A. OR GO TO: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/en/4000000000067.html 15. FEMA227/ASCE August 1996: The Oklahoma City Bombing: Improving Building Performance Through Multi-Hazard Mitigation. Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington.

Dedication
This paper is dedicated to the memory of Prof Tom Paulay of Canterbury University, New Zealand. Tom died in Christchurch on Sunday 28 June 2009. Tom was the leading research expert world-wide on ductile shear-walls and coupling-beams; see Appendix. Tom also had well-told recollections of life as a Hungarian cavalry officer, riding a real 4legged horse and dodging Russian tanks in WW2. Tom and this author first met in Christchurch in July 1972 when Tom was the critical path expert for a project there for which this author was a structural designer. We recently (2008) lunched with Tom in one of those buildings. It is a shear-wall building.

Appendix on earthquake engineering ductile frames and shear-walls

Lateral load resistance can be achieved with moment-resisting frames, with vertical steel bracing, with shear-walls/cores or with any combination thereof. In the view of this writer, the earthquake engineering literature and the majority of buildings in New Zealand and, maybe, California, have long been disproportionately interested in ductile moment-resisting frames. Tall buildings in Sydney have had load-bearing concrete shear-cores since the 1960s; perhaps influenced by the extensive prior experience of the Australian building industry with large slip-formed silos at ports and numerous rail-sidings in wheat-growing regions. The Los Angeles (San Fernando) earthquake of 1971 seemed to confirm this writers own Sydneybased prejudice: Ductile-frame buildings suffered severe non-structural damage and were vacant for many months (even years) under repair whereas Shear-wall buildings were mostly re-occupied within a few days. These effects are most important when all/most of the buildings in a community have suffered similar fates so that daily lives are disrupted, cash-flow from most ductile-frame buildings is stopped and the repair industry has to rely on more distant sources of labour and materials. Even after the San Fernando earthquake, most buildings in New Zealand and California continued to be designed as ductile-frame buildings. Perhaps engineers were overly pre-occupied with ductility and tended to overlook the advantage of shear-wall stiffness and strength particularly in terms of nonstructural damage. There was also (and may still be) a conviction that shear-walls were, necessarily, less ductile than moment-resisting frames. Indeed this authors 1972 memory is that even if one provided a very strong/stiff shear-wall which could carry all of the lateral load, one was nevertheless compelled to provide ductile moment resisting frames to carry a minimum 25% of that same lateral load. This may have been a good thing. Understanding of three-dimensional action was then limited because of the lack of three-dimensional software and even 2-dimensional analysis required computer access by modem from Australia to an American main-frame computer. The warping torsional strength of open shear-wall sections is small and faade moment frames are a very effective way to supplement torsional strength.

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Another interesting comparison is that the Australian engineering literature talks about shear-cores while the New Zealand and, to a lesser degree, Californian literature talks about shear-walls. This is not merely a linguistic difference. The main shear-core at Centrepoint Sydney, directly supporting Sydney Tower was designed and built 1967 1971 and has, from memory, about 15 discrete cells, mostly rectangular and each several metres in plan extent. This core is a complex, closed multi-cell, thin-walled box beam with huge torsional strength. It is the largest of 4 cores in Centrepoint. The size and complexity of a core necessarily depends on the services provided and hence on the area of each typical floor and the height of the building. Centrepoint has an unusually large typical floor area but only about 15 floors served by 8 lifts and a proportionate area of vertical air-ducts. The core also incorporates fire-stairs, toilets and lunch rooms. Later Australian buildings are several times taller but have rather smaller floor areas. There are more, perhaps many more, lifts but rather less vertical air ducts because 30-storey and taller buildings use intermediate plant-rooms. 1972 New Zealand shear-walls, when used at all, were smaller and simpler with few, if any, closed cells and only warping torsional-strength. Often some walls enclosing lifts were non-structural masonry which raises the risk of seismic collapse of the masonry into the lift-wells.

Colin Gurley
Col Gurley graduated BE (Civil, Hons) from the University of Sydney and MEngSc (Concrete Structures) from the University of NSW. He practised as a structural designer in southeast Australia and New Zealand with Wargon Chapman (now Hyder), with John Grill (Worley Parsons) and with Kinhill (KBR). His career highlights include periods as the lead structural design engineer for the tallest buildings in Sydney and Adelaide, structural design of offshore oil platforms, and the NZIE (IPENZ) Hume Prize 1982 for work on the earthquake resistance of heritage buildings. Col has retired from routine practice, but retains an active interest in areas such as the robustness and safety of tall buildings, in lessons to be learnt from the collapse of the World Trade Center, earthquake engineering, and the study of structural plasticity and the quest for exact and appropriate collapsemechanisms for yield-line analysis of slabs loaded out-of-plane and plane-stress problems for walls/plates loaded in-plane.

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