DIGITAL SIMULATION OF WIND FIELD VELOCITY FOR
EVALUATING PROPER STIFFNESS INDICATORS OF WINDOW
MULLIONS
Gian Felice Giaccu
1
, and Antonio Cazzani
2
1
Department of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning, University of Sassari, Alghero, Sassari,
Italy
e-mail: gf.giaccu@uniss.it
2
Department of Civil, Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari, Cagliari,
Italy
e-mail: antonio.cazzani@unica.it
Abstract
Mullions are important structural windows elements that provide their resistance to wind
forces. These elements are of fundamental importance for the energy balance of the building
since their structural behavior deeply affects its energy losses. A proper structural design of
the windows mullions is therefore important for evaluating a suitable stiffness indicator of the
mullions to avoid energy losses. In the present paper, a parametric study aiming to investi-
gate the wind-induced displacements of the window mullions and their compatibility with
their thermal barrier has been conducted. The proposed study aims to evaluate a proper mo-
ment of inertia of the aluminum profiles forming the mullions as a function of the windows
exposition for different wind forces depending on the elevation of the building in which the
window has been installed.
Keywords: wind induced effects, window mullions, stiffness indicators.
4400
COMPDYN 2021
8
th
ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on
Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering
M. Papadrakakis, M. Fragiadakis (eds.)
Streamed from Athens, Greece, 28 - 30 June 2021
Available online at www.eccomasproceedia.org
Eccomas Proceedia COMPDYN (2021) 4400-4406
ISSN:2623-3347 © 2021 The Authors. Published by Eccomas Proceedia.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of COMPDYN 2021.
doi: 10.7712/120121.8795.19219