Modeling Consequences due to Failure of Extraordinary Structures

Authors

Michael H. Faber, Oliver Kübler and Mario Fontana

Abstract

The collapse of the World Trade Centre buildings in New York on September 11, 2001 constitutes the first event in where buildings of the aforementioned type have failed completely. Despite the atypical and meaningless cause of the tragic failure it might be possible to learn something from the event, whereby the design basis of similar future structures can be enhanced. Of special importance is the assessment of the actual consequences in case of failure. The present paper considers the development of a general framework for the consequence assessment of extraordinary building structures and high-rise buildings in particular.

Published in/by

Proceedings PSAM7-ESREL'04, International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management, Berlin, Germany, June 14-18, 2004.