Numerical, analytical and experimental investigations on the response of steel and composite buildings further the loss of a column

Recent events such as natural catastrophes or terrorism attacks have highlighted the necessity to ensure the structural integrity of buildings under exceptional events. Accord-ing to Eurocodes and some different other national design codes, the structural integrity of civil engineering constructions should be ensured through appropriate measures but, in most of the cases, no precise practical guidelines on how to achieve this goal are provided. A European RFCS project entitled “Robust structures by joint ductility” has been set up in 2004, for three years, with the aim to provide requirements and practical guidelines ensuring the structural integrity of steel and composite structures under exceptional events through an appropriate robustness. In particular, one substructure test simulating the loss of a column in a composite building has been performed at Liège University. Present paper describes ana-lytical, numerical and experimental investigations carried out at Liège University as part of this European project.