A Note on the Structural Assessment of Perforated Panels used in Façade

Abstract

Different materials such as glass and composite cladding panels are common in the façade industry due to their architectural appearance. The direct sun rays enter the building and might produce discomfort to the occupants, especially in office and institutional buildings. Nowadays, perforated panels are widely used in facades and becoming more popular in the middle east. These panels are a formal exploration inspired by the Islamic patterns used in traditional Mashrabiya. This paper provides an overview of the application of Mashrabiya "perforated panels" and present structural assessment using software codes such as Robot and SAP2000 for vertical and horizontal installed cases. These panels are fabricated in different sizes with different thicknesses depends on their applications and uses. In this paper, rectangular, square fixed at the roof and vertically fixed panels are assessed. These are usually supported by steel or aluminium tubes designed for a wind load specified by project specifications. The cases presented here for the perforated panels arechecked for the induced stresses and deflections obtained from the numerical model using shell elements. The adopted framing systems and fixing detailing has been found satisfactory according to different acceptance criterion. The paper gives helpful design tools for the façade engineers.