Arresting failure propagation in buildings through collapse isolation

Building collapses often result from the propagation of initial failures. Current design methods focus on preventing collapse initiation through increased connectivity, but this can exacerbate collapse propagation in cases of large initial failures. This paper proposes a novel design approach, hierarchy-based collapse isolation, inspired by lizard tail autotomy, to arrest collapse propagation after major initial failures. The approach prioritizes the failure of specific elements (connections) before critical components (columns), isolating the collapse. Full-scale experimental tests on a precast reinforced concrete building demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, showing that increased connectivity would have led to total collapse in the same scenario.

Nirvan Makoond, Andri Setiawan, Manuel Buitrago, Jose M. Adam