Abstract
The analysis and subsequent design of cladding panels is traditionally based on quasi-static calculation of the wind loads. Pressure coefficients, which are derived from wind tunnel measurements and a design wind speed, are used to compute the wind loading. The codes of practice give the pressure coefficients and the guidelines of deriving the design wind speed from factors, which are specific to the site namely basic wind speed, topography, ground roughness and height above the ground. The concept of design wind speed is simple but it overlooks the resonant vibrations caused by the wind. The paper discusses a procedure for incorporating the time and spatial variations of the wind pressure distribution in the computation of the response of rectangular cladding panels to wind loads. The panel is subdivided into several portions. For each portion, the Davenport spectrum for wind velocity and the Shinozuka procedure for generating stationary random processes with specified spectral density are used to generate a random function, which simulates the fluctuating wind velocity at that portion. For the purpose of simulating the spatial variations in the wind pressure distribution on the cladding panel, the random functions differ from portion to portion. The correlation of the wind velocities at two different portions on the panel is described with the help of a correlation matrix. The finite element method is used to formulate the equations of motion, which are finally solved using the Newmark numerical integration procedure. Analysis of various cladding panels using both procedures showed that the maximum displacement obtained by the dynamic procedure is more than twice the maximum displacement obtained by the quasi-static procedure. The results of the analysis indicate that there is a need to base the design and analysis of cladding panels on a dynamic procedure. The results also indicate that to assess the performance of existing cladding panels, one should use a dynamic analysis because the quasi-static static analysis can lead to wrong conclusions.
Recommended Citation
Shirima, A. (2003). Prediction of the Response of Rectangular Cladding Panels to Wind Loading in the Time Domain. Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET), 26(2), 56-69. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.52339/tjet.v26i2.332
Publisher Name
University of Dar es Salaam