Structural Design for Physical Security

As dramatized by the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, civil engineers today need guidance on how to design structures to resist various hostile acts. While the U.S. military services and U.S. foreign embassy facilities both have developed their unique requirements, the documents are restricted to official use only. No widely available document has existed to provide engineers the technical data necessary to design civil structures for enhanced physical security. In recognition of this void, the ASCE created a Task Committee to produce this ""State of the Practice Report"", which provides guidance to structural engineers in the design of civil structures to resist the effects of terrorist bombings. This report includes unrestricted government information, which is for the first time assembled collectively and rephrased for application to civilian facilities. Eight chapters outline the steps commonly followed in this practice. These are the determination of the threat, methods by which structural loadings are derived for the determined threat, the behavior and selection of structural systems, the design of structural components, the design of security doors, the design of utility openings, and the retrofitting of existing structures. This report is the first transfer of this technology to the civil sector, and provides complete methods, guidance, and references for structural engineers challenged with a physical security problem.