The Cost of Retrofitting Steel-Concrete Composite Buildings Against Progressive Collapse with Steel Cables

Steel cables are an attractive means of retrofit with various engineering applications. They have been extensively used to strengthen deficient buildings against gravitational or earthquake-induced loads. This work investigates the use of steel cables as a means of retrofitting steel-concrete composite buildings against progressive collapse. The effect of the building’s characteristics on the total retrofit cost is studied. A fair assessment of designs defined for different requirements is achieved by definition of the most cost-effective solution for each scenario. This is achieved by an optimization algorithm, i.e. the Evolution Strategies, which is employed to define the solution with the desired performance and, at the same time, the minimum cost. For this purpose, a total number of 144 optimizations have been performed. The results yielded reveal the different properties of each retrofit scenario.