Structural Collapse Analyses of Buildings Using an Adaptive Finite Element Code

Abstract


An adaptive finite element code based upon the ASI (Adaptively Shifted Integration)-Gauss technique is applied on various collapse problems of buildings. The code provides higher computational efficiency than the conventional code in such problems, and enables us to cope with dynamic behavior with strong nonlinearities including phenomena such as member fracture and elemental contact. Contact release and re-contact algorithms are also developed and implemented in the code to realize complex behaviors of structural members during collapse sequence. An outline of the numerical code is described and some numerical examples are shown in this paper.


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