Sustainable facade design for glazed buildings in a blast resilient urban environment

In facade construction the glazed elements have always been considered the most critical components for the minimization of hazards during a blast event. In today's blast events, terrorists have changed their mode of action and targets where the glass performance is weak have become even more of a concern. Therefore counter-terrorism offices (such as in the UK) have been introducing design guidelines for crowded places, making a compromise between safety and sustainability. This paper describes how it is possible to achieve a resilient urban environment, where glass is still the dominant element of the architectural scope making use of glazed facade systems with excellent blast protection performances. Novel façade systems have recently been developed by means of effective simulation techniques. The numerical tools recognize, enhance and balance the already existing façade capacity to resist the blast loads and take into account the fundamental dynamic interactions between all façade elements. In this way, innovative façade components (such as curtain walling brackets) have been developed which have the ability to upgrade conventional or lightly enhanced glass facade systems to higher blast protection levels.

LORI Guido;  MORISON Colin;  LARCHER Martin;  BELIS Jan; 

2018-10-12

Springer

JRC106471

2363-5150 (online),   

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40940-018-0088-3,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC106471,   

10.1007/s40940-018-0088-3 (online),