Robustness and Resilience of Structures under Extreme Loads

Abstract

Manyofmodernlifeactivitiesinvolvetheriskoffire,explosions,andimpacts.Inaddition,naturalextremeeventsarebecoming moreandmorecommon.Thus,robustness,theabilitytoavoiddisproportionatecollapseduetoaninitialdamage,andresilience, the ability to adapt to and recover from the effects of changing external conditions, represent two important characteristics of current structures and infrastructures. Their definitions are reviewed in this paper with the aim of sorting and describing the different approaches proposed in the literature and in theinternational standards. A simple exampleis also analysedin orderto compare different methods.