Ultimate behaviour of cladding assemblages in industrial buildings

Abstract

Profiled steel sheeting is widely used as cladding systems in industrial buildings. These systems are normally composed of thin-walled cold-formed steel profiles attached to steel purlins, or side-rails, which are connected to the column elements by means of simple fastener arrangements. Extensive research has been carried out on the response of cold-formed cladding systems under out of plane loading and codified recommendations are available to estimate their resistance under serviceability and ultimate limit states for the purpose of conventional design verifications. Attention has also been placed recently on quantifying the degree of rotational flexibility offered by purlin-sheeting systems. Nevertheless, the ultimate response of such configurations involves complex interactions within the cladding-purlin-connection assemblage that need to be carefully examined in order to assess and quantify the large deformation response. The study reported in this paper focuses on the inelastic response of industrial cladding systems which are designed and detailed according to conventional European practice. Selected results from a series of quasi-static tests performed within a wider collaborative project aimed at assessing the local and global static and dynamic behaviour of industrial building systems are presented. Due to the comparatively more robust response of typical industrial frame elements, the tests focus on the performance of cladding-purlin-column assemblages. The test layout and boundary conditions are described and the discussion is centred on key structural response parameters, namely stiffness, strength and failure conditions. Preliminary numerical assessments carried out with a view to providing further analytical and design studies are also outlined.