Architect’s imaginations are leading buildings to reach higher standards in performances and shape complexity. This challenge involves ever more the building’s skin and glazing surfaces and gives the opportunity to improve the new structural design approach for those parts.
Engineers must accurately define, considering complex geometries, the correct area to be analyzed, and especially perfect the calculation process and modelling. The aim of our research is to develop a specific process to analyse glazing elements in the case of complex geometry structures. The starting point of this specific approach is to start immediately developing the design through the elaboration of the 3D geometry model, improving it during the design process with all the other aspects (architectural choice, performances requirement, geometry shapes etc…) in a “real-time” approach up to the development and structural analysis of the whole project model.
Using this approach called “one single model” it is possible to obtain an automatic analysis process starting from the complex geometry obtaining the structural analysis of all the glazed panels, allowing to immediately understand the most critical parts of the facade in terms of stress, deflection and giving the designer the opportunity to optimize the material on the whole curtain wall system.
Session: Structural Glass Applications
Event: GPD Finland 2019
Video courtesy of Glass Performance Days (GPD)