SEDL / STP / STP1286-EB / STP16291S

Structural Silicone Glazing: In-Service Reliability Evaluation

Schwartz, TA
Principal, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., Consulting Engineers, Arlington, MA

Zarghamee, MS
Principal, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., Consulting Engineers, Arlington, MA

Kan, FW
Staff Engineer, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., Consulting Engineers, Arlington, MA

Pages: 12    Published: Jan 1996

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Abstract

A simple and cost effective procedure is presented for in-service evaluation of the reliability of structural silicone glazed curtain wall systems. The field test utilizes a point load apparatus to simulate the effect of a uniform wind load. The analytical bases of the field testing procedure include selecting an acceptable failure probability for the structural silicone system, performing finite element analysis to determine the stresses in the structural silicone, selecting the magnitude of the point load that produces the same stress in the structural silicone as a uniform design load, and performing statistical analysis of the data. We present a test procedure, test results and analysis procedure for a hypothetical case.