The United States General Services Administration (GSA) has officially released a new update to their progressive collapse criteria titled, General Services Administration Alternate Path Analysis & Design Guidelines For Progressive Collapse Resistance, dated October 24, 2013. This document has been modified from previous versions to more effectively address leased as well as owned facilities.
Applicability
These Guidelines have been written specifically for professionals working on projects related to the planning and design of new facilities or major modernization projects. Applicability of the progressive collapse requirements are based on the Interagency Security Criteria (ISC) Physical Security Criteria’s Facility Security Level (FSL) of the building and the number of stories. These Guidelines are not applicable for facilities already designed for progressive collapse under previous GSA or UFC criteria.
For lower FSLs, no progressive collapse design is required, regardless of number of floors. The higher FSLs do require progressive collapse assessments for buildings that are 4 stories or taller. For the highest FSL, progressive collapse analysis is required regardless of the number of floors.
Two key features in the new document include:
Threat Dependent
Instead of a threat-independent approach, the new document takes “a flexible risk-based approach where requirements are driven by the security needs of the Federal tenant (s).” This approach focuses on reducing progressive collapse potential through two methods. The first is stopping failure of load-carrying elements through structural hardening for a given threat and the second is to reduce propagation of the damage without consideration of the cause of the event. In some cases, as approved by GSA Technical Representatives, hardening a structure can be utilized instead of the GSA’s Guidelines for certain FSL facilities.
Removal of Tie Forces and Enhanced Local Resistance
The GSA’s new guidelines do not include Tie Force methodology or Enhanced Local Resistance, rather an Alternate Path approach requiring the structure to bridge over loss location elements is required for higher FSL facilities.
To learn more about the new document, Click here to download the GSA PC Guidelines.
The Kilis Turkey refugee camp as described in a recent New York Times article seems idyllic, as far as refugee camps go. It is like a small city with paved roads, power lines, grocery stores, playgrounds, internet, schools, and more. With over 2,000 identical containers, and one of 6 “container camps”, this camp of 14,000 residents is only a small part of the larger effort supporting over 600,000 refugees from Syria. Many have stated that this is the nicest refugee camp in the world.
The NYT article brings up an interesting question about this camp by saying “… if a camp becomes a shelter not just for a few months but for years, a substitute — even a deterrent — to a real solution, how much does it matter how nice it is?” In general, refugees spend over 12 years in camps like these. While physically, all needs are met, it becomes emotionally taxing for refugees to remain in an area for a long period of time without moving on with life and their livelihoods.
Click below for a link to the article and others related to these camps.
The USACE’s Protective Design Center provides a quarterly update for DoD Barrier Anti-Ram Vehicle Barrier List and was posted on January 17, 2014.
This list is comprised of a large suite of vehicle barriers which have been successfully tested in accordance with ASTM F2656 (Standard Test Method for Vehicle Crash Testing of Perimeter Barriers) or DoS SD-STD-02.01 (Vehicle Crash Testing of Perimeter Barriers and Gates). Inclusion on this list requires proper testing, and detailed documentation associated with the test per the applicable testing standard.
Check out the robust list of almost 150 different barriers on the list from a wide variety of vendors here.
