Author(s)

KIM MEOW LIEW, WEIKANG SUN, BINBIN YIN, JINHUA SUN, VENKATESH KUMAR R. KODUR

Abstract

Glass façades are widely used in modern high-rise buildings because of their aesthetic merits and environmentally friendly characteristics. However, collapsing glass in an accidental fire can lead to huge casualties and economic losses. Here, we develop a meshfree computational framework based on peridynamics to investigate the fire resistance and mechanical performance of glass façades. The proposed model is well verified and applied to explore the damage and failure mechanisms of glass façades. The effects of the temperature distribution on the thermomechanical fracture behaviour of glazing are also explored. Results show that cracks tend to initiate at fixed supporting points such as bolts and their propagation paths are greatly influenced by the temperature distributions. Both temperature gradient and local boundary conditions can play a significant role in the thermomechanical cracking of glass façades. This work provides important insights on cracking mechanisms of glass façades during a fire and provide the building and construction companies with new recommendations and design guidelines for improved fire safety.

Keywords

meshless, modelling, fire resistance, mechanical performance, glass façade