Performance-based fire protection of office buildings: A case study based on the collapse of WTC 7

This article points out the benefits of employing a performance based analysis approach for ascertaining the likelihood that travelling fires in an office building could induce a localized failure that might trigger its collapse. The case study chosen is Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex. Based on the parametric study undertaken, our findings were that the fire-protected steel floor beam, identified as the initiator of the cascade of events that followed, could not have done so, virtually under any circumstance.