Guidelines for the performance-based design of structures to resist disproportionate collapse are under development by the American Society of Civil Engineers' Structural Engineering Institute. SEI expects to release a draft next year and publish the guidelines in 2013.
“We are providing guidelines for those who wish to use them. We are not mandating use,” says Robert Smilowitz, chairman of the SEI's disproportionate collapse standards and guidance committee and a principal at structural engineer Weidlinger Associates Inc., New York City.