Evaluation of the bending properties of profiled skin structure

Abstract

This research is focused on developing a representative testing method for structural skin panels. The profiled panels are widely used in many applications used in warehouses and factories. They are mainly used as roof or wall cladding to resist uniformly distributed loads mostly imposed by wind loads. Existing mechanical tests include the operation of wind tunnels to apply uniform load on corrugated large surfaces. These wind tunnels are expensive to build, requires a large space and are time consuming. The main objective of this research is to develop an easier and realistic testing method to test these panels and provide accurate mechanical properties, such as the stiffness rigidity of the panels. A total of 54 samples of skin panels divided into 18 sets were tested. Each set consists of 3 samples of nearly 1.0 x 2.0 m in size. Sets are divided into different metals, shapes of corrugations (profiles), and thicknesses. Two types of metals were tested; galvanized steel and aluminum profiled sheets. To verify the value obtained from the laboratory, a theoretical calculation based on EN1999-4:2007 standards is calculated and compared with the British standard. Finally, a finite element model was developed to correlate laboratory and calculated results. The difference between the actual tested samples and the empirical calculations for the galvanized steel profiles was (0.31%-6.4%). The aluminum profiled sheets showed the same pattern which was (0%-7%). Furthermore, modeling by ABACUS showed close differences above the tested values which supports the current results. The results confirm that the new set up produced conservative measurements compared to the empirical calculations.