Wind Resistance Performance of Large-Scale Glass Curtain Walls Supported by a High-Rise Building

Abstract

A large-scale glass curtain wall (LGCW) attached to a high-rise building is analyzed using the finite element method to investigate the wind resistance performance of the LGCW with and without the high-rise building. The results show that without the high-rise building, the peak wind-induced response occurs in the center of each glass panel of the LGCW, and it gradually decreases away from the center towards the edges of each glass panel. When the high-rise building is included in the finite element model, the additional wind-induced response on the LGCW caused by the deformation of the high-rise building is large at the upper and lower glass panel edges, and gradually decreases toward the panel center. The high-rise building produces great effects on the displacements of the LGCW but weak effects on the stresses, where the peak displacement of the whole LGCW is increased by 40.5%. The influences of key structural parameters, including the lateral stiffness of the high-rise building and the connection stiffness between the large glass curtain wall and the high-rise building, on the wind resistance performance of the LGCW are further investigated. The results demonstrate that the smaller the lateral stiffness of the high-rise building is, the greater the additional responses caused by the deformation of the high-rise building on the LGCW are, and the greater the total load responses of the LGCW are. The smaller the connection stiffness between the LGCW and the high-rise building is, the greater the responses of the independent LGCW are, while the additional responses induced by the deformation of the high-rise building on the LGCW are not significant.