Tensile Capacities of Standing Seam Cladding‐Purlin Clip Connection

Standing seam panels are offering un‐competed metal roofing solution with respect to water leakage prevention. Therefore, need to develop new Standing Seam profiles and alternative seaming techniques is rising now a days. However, standing seam panels wind uplift capacities have no specification or closed form equations and tests are usually needed in order to evaluate clip and seaming capacities. Testing an assembly of the standing seam panels in air chamber equipped with adequate air bumps is usually done for this purpose. However, same types of lab equipment are not available in many developing countries and shipping assemblies overseas for testing is costly. Consequently, developing testing method that is economic and fairly accurate is needed. In this study, standing seam clip connection is designed and tested separately in universal testing machine. The designed details are simulated numerically using nonlinear finite element model. Cladding sheets are modeled using hybrid shell & solid elements while connecting fasteners are modeled using beam elements, Results of the developed testing techniques are compared with that of large scale standing roof system tested using air bump chamber. Failure loads of the isolated clip connection are compared with that in the large scale panels failure modes.