ABSTRACT
Recent events such as the collapse of the World Trade Towers in New York have shown a need to consider progressive collapse as a routine part of structural design. Progressive collapse can occur due to any hazardous loading including seismic or blast loading. Progressive collapse is a process whereby the potential energy of a structure is converted into kinetic energy, which in turn is converted into strain energy. This strain energy will result in structural failure and subsequent progressive collapse may occur. Fracture, fragmentation and impact are an integral part of this failure process, thus continuum analysis is not sufficient and discontinuous deformation methods such as DDA manifold, DEM and FEM/DEM must be considered. FEM/DEM best suits the need of the research presented in this paper. The paper presents the results of a numerical simulation using the FEM/DEM method of a full-scale building subjected to blast loading. The building chosen is the Alfred P Murrah Building in Oklahoma, USA, which was subjected to a vehicle bombing in 1995. The paper also presents a summary of algorithmic developments in the FEM/DEM method.
