Basic structural design considerations and （基本结构设计注意事项和）.pdf

Basic structural design considerations and properties of glass and aluminum structures S.L. Chan Research Center for Advanced Technology in Structural Engineering (RCATISE) Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University Synopsis A short review for design consideration of two common materials used in facade and curtain walling is presented. The characteristics of light-weight facade enveloping a building are different from the conventional steel or concrete structures. Glass cannot crack like concrete and it is much more brittle than steel. Aluminum involves many buckling modes similar to but more common than steel. Owing to the low Young modulus of elasticity around 1/3 of steel, buckling and large deflection nonlinear effects are important consideration in their design. This note summaries the most fundamental features of structures made of these materials. Keywords: glass, aluminum, buckling, structural design, nonlinear analysis, design codes, breakage. 144 Introduction Glass is a brittle material that is weak in tension because of its non-crystalline molecular structure. When glass is stressed beyond its strength limit, breakage occurs immediately without warning, unlike steel and aluminum where plastic mechanism can be formed. Stress or moment re-distribution does not occur in glass and local and then consequential global failure is very common in glass. Testing has shown that glass strength is statistical in nature. Highly stressed and larger stressed area results in a higher probability of failure. Stress vs strain curves for