Fatigue Analysis of Metal Connectors in Point-supported Glazing Curtain Walls

摘要

The use of point-supported glazing curtain walls has enjoyed rapid growth in resent years. There are still a number of issues of concern in the structural design. One of these is the cyclic fatigue behavior of curtain walls under out door environmental conditions. During service life, the curtain walls is mainly subjected to periodically lateral wind pressure, and the fatigue failure would be found on the metal connector which is one of the components of the cur tain walls. The supporting series are part of the metal connector with material of the 316 stainless steel. The fa tigue performance of the 316 stainless steel has gained so much in recent years, but there is still lack of attention on the structural components such as supporting series. The fatigue performance is obviously different between struc tural components and standard samples for various conditions such as surface processing, surface flaw size and sur rounding environment eta Although the surface of the structural components has been polished in the processing of manufacture, there are still many tiny flaws on the surface unavoidably. As it is well known, the fatigue damage will undoubtedly originate from these undetected flaws, and its strength tends to decrease in time as a result of sur face damage. Fatigue experiments have been conducted employing supporting series of the 316 stainless steel on the consideration of actual loading conditions. The fatigue failure modes and zones can be observed in the fatigue tests. The comparisons between the two-step loading fatigue tests and the modified Miner's rules have been presented based on the linear cumulative damage rules. The results will give rise to a satisfactory foundation on the later stud y on the fatigue damage and life forecast of the metal connector.