Mitigation of progressive collapse was highlighted in 1968 with the collapse of the Ronan Point building in theUnited Kingdom. Technical standards followed suit with increased requirements and recommendations to encourage thedesign and construction of more robust buildings. The intent has been to establish a design process that recognizes andconsiders the potential that buildings could experience abnormal and extreme loads or events that seriously compromiseone or more critical load-carrying elements.This article aims to show that if the main goal of the design is to protect human lives in these extreme conditions, evensacrificing the building functionality, simple measures such as the activation of the elasto-plastic catenary behaviour ofthe slab reinforcement, could be very effective to increase the building robustness without substantially increasing the costof a structural system.
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