Keywords: earthquake, façades, buildings, time histories, connection, stiffness, damping, inter-storey drift, distortion, finite element.

Facades are popular in modern buildings and are made of a number of materials such as precast concrete, glass, aluminium and steel. During recent times seismic activity in densely populated areas has resulted in damage to several buildings and a consequent loss of life. There were many type of building failures, which also included failure of building facade systems. Facade systems are highly vulnerable and fail more frequently than the buildings themselves with significant devastating effects. During an earthquake building frames suffer large inter-storey drifts, causing racking of the building façade systems. The façade systems may not be able to cater for such large deformations and this can result in either the functional or total failure at the façade connections or damage by pounding (impact) with adjacent façade panels. The importance of a well designed façade system on a building needs to be emphasised as it must address the above mentioned important structural considerations as well as environmental and energy conservation aspects as they represent between 15-30% of the total building cost.

This paper presents an investigation of the seismic behaviour of building façade systems and studies the effects of façade and connection properties on this response. The objectives of the study were to determine and control façade distortions to avoid failure and to establish the required connection properties. Finite Element techniques have been used for modelling and analysis of the building frame, façade and connection properties. Time history analyses under earthquake loadings were carried out to determine the system response in terms of inter-storey drifts, façade distortions, differential displacement between façades and frames and the axial force in horizontal connections. Connection properties with respect to stiffness and energy absorption capability (or damping) have been modelled and varied to obtain the desired response.

Findings illustrate the influence of these connection properties on system response and show that it is possible to control façade distortions to within acceptable limits. They also demonstrate the benefits of incorporating energy absorption systems into the façade connections to mitigate the detrimental seismic effects.

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