Explosion and thermal load in a high-rise steel building

The purpose of this study is to examine some differences and amalgamations between combined effects on a structural system from multiple fires and “local” explosions. The collapse of the WTC buildings had led to the reevaluation of methods and practices that are commonly used by the international structural engineering community with regard to abnormal loading conditions such as multi-floor fires and explosions. Many published recommendations in this case are based on no specific knowledge of loading conditions (such as an “indirect method”), or on some static equivalent of an explosion load (direct method). This study is specifically devoted to the static and dynamic portions of the thermal and explosion abnormal load and their influences on structural design.