Alternative load path — where it appears
Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
Also named here as progressive collapse — the same set of essays touches all of them, so they are one junction rather than several.
The structure that survives losing a member
Every check in this collection asks what a structure carries. None of them asks what is left when part of it is gone — and two frames with the same members, the same weight and the same factor of safety can answer that question completely differently.
The force nobody put in the model
A slab strip whose ends cannot move apart is not the strip in the yield-line calculation. Deflecting shortens the chord between its ends, the ends do not come in, and the strip is forced into an arch — worth four times the load it was designed for, at a movement nobody would see.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
Progressive collapseRobustnessCatenaryCollapse mechanismCompatibilityDeterminacyDuctilityHorizontal thrustLimit pointMechanismMembrane actionNo tension material