Ronan Point Apartment Tower Collapse and its Effect on Building Codes

Abstract

Abstract:In the early morning hours of May 16, 1968, the occupant of apartment 90 on the 18th floor of the 22-story Ronan Point apartment tower, in London, lit a match to brew her morning cup of tea. The resulting gas explosion initiated a partial collapse of the structure that killed four people and injured 17 (one of whom subsequently died). On investigation, the apartment tower was found to be deeply flawed in both design and construction. The existing building codes were found to be inadequate for ensuring the safety and integrity of high-rise precast concrete apartment buildings. The Larsen-Nielson building system, intended for buildings with only six stories, had been extended past the point of safety. The tower consisted of precast panels joined together without a structural frame. The connections relied, in large part, on friction. The apartment tower lacked alternate load paths to redistribute forces in the event of a partial collapse. When the structure was dismantled, investigators found appallingly poor workmanship at the critical connections between the panels. Subsequently, building codes in many countries have adopted structural integrity or "robustness" provisions that may be directly traced to the Ronan Point collapse.

Assessment of the Effectiveness of Cabling System Configuration in Retrofitting Steel-Concrete Composite Buildings

“…Nevertheless, cables installed in multiple storeys can capture potential damage which occurs on storeys above the one considered (e.g. a gas explosion such as the one that caused the collapse of the Ronan Point building [61]). …”

Some structural aspects of top-down demolition of concrete buildings

“…Many of the buildings now being demolished date from before the changes in building regulations as a consequence of the Ronan Point collapse in 1968 (Pearson and Delatte, 2005), and so reliable tying and robust detailing may not be present. This means that while elements may be adequately sized for the loads they must carry, there is no mechanism for preventing progressive collapse should one element be removed in an inappropriate sequence.…”

Modeling of RC Frame Buildings for Progressive Collapse Analysis

“…Progressive or disproportionate collapse occurs when a structure has its load pattern or boundary conditions altered in a manner such that some structural elements are loaded beyond their capacity and fail (Krauthammer et al 2003). As well-documented in El-Tawil et al (2014), several studies have been carried out in this field especially after the partial collapse of Ronan Point tower in England in 1968 (Pearson and Delatte 2005), with a significant increase in published papers in the field in the last 10 years. Early studies, including the papers by Lewicki and Olesen (1974), Arora et al (1980), Gross and McGuire (1983), and McConnel and Kelly (1983), while reviewing alternative design methods to prevent progressive collapse and proposing the first computational approach for performing simulations, already highlight the need for unified analytical procedures for evaluating the resistance of structures to progressive collapse.…”