Natural fuse-segmentation to arrest failure propagation in precast concrete buildings

Abstract

[EN] Our previous work on precast construction has shown that sufficient structural robustness can be achieved by adequately designing the connection detailing to withstand a sudden column removal under the accidental load scenario. However, the behaviour of such a system under larger initial failure has not been investigated to date. This article presents one of the recent tests carried out by the Building Resilient research group of the Universitat Politècnica de València, where a full-scale precast building of 2 storeys (6 m) and 3 x 2 spans (15 x 12 m2) has been tested under removal of three columns. Preliminary computational simulations were performed using the applied element method (AEM) to design the load scenarios. The test results indicated that the precast system has a natural segmentation ability, which is beneficial to arrest the failure propagation, limiting the collapse extent to a minimum.