This summer, the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers expects to release, for public comment, a draft of the first U.S. consensus standard addressing disproportionate collapse of structures. The ASCE-SEI Disproportionate Collapse Mitigation of Building Structures Standard Committee, which has nearly 50 members, started work on the standard in 2009, according to Donald O. Dusenberry, consulting engineer and committee chair.
“We started from scratch,” says Dusenberry, who retired in January after 45 years with Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. “I don’t believe there is anything like this in the U.S.,” he adds.