Double-Skin Glass Façade - Design Method of Wind Pressure

Hikaru Ishida

In Japan, glass façade with room-height glazing is one of trends of commercial buildings. Some projects are planned with double-skin façade. But there is no experimental data for the distribution load ratio of the inner and the outer skin for the wind pressure, so we executed real sized wind pressure test for double-skin façade by using a pressure box, in order to fi nd it. In this test, we set two parameters. One was the depth of the cavity, and the other was the opening area ratio of the cavity. We got some information as follows. The openings in the skins gave a huge influence on the distribution load ratio, regardless of their positions. And when one of skins was sealed up perfectly and the other had relatively small openings, the sealed skin loaded most of the wind pressure. In addition, when the cavity had realistic openings, there was no difference depending on the cavity depth.

Full-Text Article [118 KB]