Coexisting with Disasters: A State-of-the-art Review of Resilience Assessment of Steel Structures under Extreme Hazards

Abstract

The current era of structural design prioritizes safety, performance, and compliance with evolving standards. While these advancements have undoubtedly improved structural integrity, safety is no longer sufficient. The increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, including seismic events and tornadoes, along with human-induced hazards, such as blasts, demand a broader and more adaptive design philosophy. This paradigm is resilience, a concept that not only addresses immediate structural survival but also considers recovery, functionality, and the broader physical, social, and economic impacts of disasters. Resilience-based design surpasses conventional approaches by accounting for indirect consequences, such as downtime and cascading effects, and emphasizing recovery and long-term societal well-being. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of resilience assessment for steel structures subjected to lateral loads from seismic, blast, and tornado hazards. Which impose significant demands on structural integrity and resilience due to the extreme forces they exert, making them critical in resilience assessment. The limitations of current design codes, such as the Eurocode, are critically examined, focusing on their emphasis on life safety over recovery and their lack of multi-hazard frameworks. Future directions are explored, including the adaptation of design codes to incorporate multi-hazard resilience, the integration of advanced materials, and the development of quantifiable resilience metrics. By addressing these challenges, this paper emphasizes the need to transform structural engineering to ensure that steel structures can coexist with disasters. The insights presented aim to promote the development of novel approaches and methodologies that enhance resilience as a core principle in structural steel design.