Abstract:
The use of thin steel roof battens for
roof structures has been increased notably
around the world. However, the occurrences of
more intense and frequent storms due to climate
changes have been a major cause of significant
roof failures. Recent wind damage studies have
highlighted that such severe roof failures occur
predominantly in the form of localized pull through failures of thin steel roof battens.
Although recent research studies have
developed suitable design methods, they have
not considered very thin steel roof battens (<0.5
mm). Hence this research is aimed to assess the
suitability of current design equations for the
design of very thin steel roof battens subject to
pull-through failures. A series of pull-through
failure tests of roof battens was conducted for
this purpose under simulated static wind uplift
load and this paper presents the details and
results from this study.
