The seismic tests were carried out in accordance with the American AAMA 501.4 and AAMA 501.6-09 standards.
TECNALIA’s Façade Laboratory has set up a new test bench to test the behaviour of façades in the event of a seismic event. The ALUMAN Group in Galicia has entrusted our laboratory to assess the performance of its curtain wall against seismic movements for the Nuevo Pudahuel Airport in Chile..
Seismic tests were carried out under the American AAMA standard; the most requested by prescribers for both static and dynamic movements, in accordance with AAMA 501.4-09 “Recommended Static Test Method for Evaluating Curtain Wall and StoreFront Systems Subjected to Seismic and Wind Induced Interstory Drifts” and AAMA 501.6-09 “Recommended Dynamic Test Method for Determining the Seismic Drift Causing Glass Fallout from a Wall System”.
ALUMAN, the leading façade manufacturer, subjected its “Stick” curtain wall for the new airport terminal in Santiago de Chile to these seismic tests and obtained satisfactory results. The ALUMAN Group is an international company, with its headquarters in A Coruña and a presence in more than fifty countries. This façade manufacturer produces tailor-made solutions for large-scale one-off national and international projects. As a benchmark façade laboratory, TECNALIA is working with ALUMAN to help it demonstrate its commitment to the safety and regulatory compliance of its systems to its customers.
Versatile seismic test bench
TECNALIA's seismic test bench is versatile and can accommodate prototypes and mock ups that reproduce samples of one or even two floors of a building. If it is a two-storey assembly, it will be the intermediate slab that causes the horizontal movement. If it is a single storey assembly, both the upper and lower slab may move.
Both the static and dynamic tests complement each other. After assembling the sample on the test bench, a static load is applied to the façade to test the functionality of the sample. A dynamic load is then applied to the same sample to assess the safety of the construction element: it basically consists of a concatenated series of increasing intervals, followed by constant amplitude intervals and horizontal beam displacements, simulating the floor slabs of a building.
In addition to horizontal movements along the same plane as the façade, TECNALIA can provide movements in other directions and, therefore, can simulate structural movements that may cause significant damage to a building's skin.
Further information
As a benchmark laboratory for architectural envelopes TECNALIA helps façade manufacturers to carry out all the necessary tests: large-scale reaction to fire tests; impact tests; air-water-wind tests; soundproofing and thermal insulation tests; seismic tests, etc.
