Seismic
Around the World, seismically active regions and the earthquakes they produce pose an obvious threat to life and property. However, one of the most serious nonstructural dangers is glass breakage in the effected area. To put it simply, shaking and twisting during the event that does not cause the building to collapse, could still easily shatter the windows in the frames creating a hazardous condition during and after the earthquake.
This was a subject of international research in the aftermath of the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. In the ensuing investigation, serious glass failure, which involved 63 buildings, were recorded by inspectors as a source of major concern. This was compounded by the following observations:
Buildings with complex or irregular configurations received almost twice as much serious glass breakage as those with regular configurations.
Larger glass areas and vertical glass shapes received more serious glass damage than smaller or square shaped.
Flexible glazing systems (metal frames) received twice as much serious glass damage than more rigid systems (concrete, masonry, reinforced wood frames.)
These results were confirmed during the Northridge CA earthquake in 1994 where it was found that although only 14 structures were observed as having serious structural fault, roughly 60 percent of all small commercial buildings in the area lost their shop front windows, replicating the Mexico City incident.
Safety film as a preventive measure is an obvious choice to retrofit the existing glass in any building and provide increased protection from the breakage so common after a seismic event. Safety film was part of a study conducted to investigate the seismic performance of architectural glazing systems. These tests produced a variety of data on various glass types (called “crescendo tests” because of the progressively increasing Dynamic shaking to simulate predicted earthquake limits). It was found that applied Safety film increased resistance to the point at which cracking and crushing occurred and also increase the level at which the glass falls out or is ejected from the frame (a serious life hazard to occupants and adjacent pedestrians).
Saudi Arabia
