NAFEMS Webinar Series

Applied Element Method as a Practical Tool for Progressive Collapse Analysis of Structures

(Members Only )

(Note: This broadcast is part of the NAFEMS vendor series that allows various solutions providers the opportunity to deliver technical information to the NAFEMS community. NAFEMS does not endorse any vendor, but tries to provide an unbiased view of the marketplace.)

One of the biggest deficiencies of most current structural design codes is that they do not necessitate performing a progressive collapse analysis of a building. The catastrophic result of this deficiency is that many existing buildings may collapse totally or partially due to the failure of just one column under the effect of man-made or natural disasters. One of the sad examples is the collapse of almost 40% of the Alfred P. Murrah Building at Oklahoma City due to a terrorist attack that affected one of its columns.

Currently, design codes all over the world are being modified to have mandatory checks of buildings against progressive collapse. Simulation of progressive collapse of a structure is one of the most complicated engineering tasks. Accurate analysis should consider numerous factors, including nonlinear behavior of concrete and steel, accurate failure criteria, automated criteria for element separation, and collision between falling debris and other structural elements.

The question which arises for many engineers is “Which structural analysis tool can we use to study progressive collapse?”

Applied Element Method is a new concept in structural analysis that is designed mainly for engineers to do advanced analysis that is usually done by scientists. Using the AEM, the progressive collapse analysis can incorporate crack initiation and propagation, yield of steel, buckling and post-buckling behavior of columns, element separation, falling of debris, and collision between different structural elements. The analysis can be completed in reasonable time, with reliable accuracy and without any user intervention or pre-conditioning to control the way the building should behave under extreme loadings.

In this presentation:

The topic of progressive collapse analysis of structure is discussed
The limitations of simplified and advanced FEM tools are presented
The theoretical background of AEM is introduced
Practical applications of AEM in the field of blast analysis and progressive collapse are given

Agenda

Welcome & Introduction
Matthew Ladzinski, NAFEMS North America

Applied Element Method as a Practical Tool for Progressive Collapse Analysis of Structures Hatem Tagel-Din, Applied Sciences Int, LLC

Q & A Session

Closing

Please feel free to download the following articles related to the upcoming webinar:

- The Applied Element Method: The Ultimate Analysis of Progressive Collapse

- Extreme Loading: Breaks Through Finite Element Barriers

Webinar Presenter

Dr. Hatem Tagel-Din

Dr. Hatem Tagel-Din. Chief Scientist of Applied Science International, LLc, located at Raleigh, North Carolina, US. He is the founder of the Applied Element Method upon which the computer simulations for Structural Demolition is based. He got his Ph.D. from the Disaster Mitigation Engineering Center, Tokyo University, Japan on 1998. He has more than 40 published papers at international journals and conferences. He has three academic awards from the Japan Society for Civil Engineers. He is the Project Manager for the Extreme Loading for Structures ® software which is used to analyze structures under extreme loads, progressive collapse and for demolition purposes.

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