The race towards new building heights confronts numerous challenges. The main challenge that
controls the design of a tall slender structure is the building drift. Another challenge confronting
the designer is probably the robustness required to avoid progressive collapse due to localized
failures in case of a column loss. The study investigates how to improve the building performance
to overcome these challenges.
One of the most efficient and economical structural systems used to incapacitate these challenges
is the use of belt trusses to provide a significant drift control through the tying of the peripheral
columns enhancing in the process the building resistance to progressive collapse by means of
holding the damaged elements' initial failure and redistributing the load supported by the failed
elements. The optimum locations of the belt trusses still remain a crucial and also a pending
question.
The study provides an answer to this question by demonstrating the results of a 25 storey steel
building as a design example with belt trusses placed in different locations. The results indicate
that both the drift and progressive collapse will be obviously enhanced merely by determining the
optimum locations of belt trusses.