Design of Cladding Panel Walls With Fixed Connections

Abstract eng:
In common design practice of precast structures, cladding panels are not designed to contribute to the structure’s lateral stiffness but they are connected to the structure with fastening devices dimensioned to bear the panels’ self-weight, wind loads and seismic loads corresponding to the panels’ mass only. However, the behavior of cladding wall systems in recent strong earthquakes showed that cladding panels may become an integral part of the structure’s lateral resisting system, resulting, in that case, to severe damage to their connections with the building. Innovative panel-to-structure connections and novel design approaches for a correct conception and dimensioning of the fastening system were investigated within the framework of the FP7 European project SAFECLADDING. Within this project, an extensive experimental and analytical program was performed at the Laboratory for Earthquake Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece for concrete panels fixed to the structure with strong connections, capable to bear the large forces that develop during earthquakes. In this paper, guidelines on the design of buildings with integrated arrangements of cladding panel walls, which were produced based on the results of the aforementioned experimental and analytical investigation, are reported. Issues concerning the design of the structure as a whole, as well as the design of the panels and their connections are discussed. It is noted that, due to the large stiffness of buildings with integrated panels, small story displacements are expected to occur and, thus, the prevailing energy dissipation mechanism can only be achieved through the plastic deformation of the panel connections. However, despite the fact that strong panel connections possess considerable ductility, it is questionable whether plastic deformation should be allowed to them under the design earthquake, due to reasons related to their overall behavior. A simplified modeling of the panels and their connections is also proposed for design purposes. In this model, equivalent beam elements are proposed for the modeling of the panels, while appropriate elastic translational and rotational springs are used to capture the complex response of the panel-to-beam connections. Finally, several types of connections, materialized with vertical reinforcement bars or industrial and hand-made steel mechanisms are presented and their behavior is discussed based on the experimental results.

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