A Study on Screw Fastened Profile Steel Sheet Subjected to Simulated Uplift Load

Profiled steel sheets play an important role in light gauge metal building construction, particularly as roof claddings in houses, low-rise commercial and industrial buildings. Thin profiled steel sheets are commonly connected to the underlying purlins or steel trusses/frame by drilling or tapping of screws. Screw fastened light gauge steel profiled roofing sheets are mostly subjected to wind suction or wind uplift forces. Strong and fluctuating wind uplift force may fail locally in the vicinity of screw. Different types of ribbed have great significance on the structural strength and behaviour of profile steel sheet. The objective of this study is to investigate the structural strength and behaviour of different profiled steel sheet roofing elements under simulated wind uplift forces. A series of tests was performed on profiled steel sheet roofing subjected to wind uplift simulated pressure. Three different ribbed sheets namely; arc-tangent, tile type and trapezoidal profiled steel sheet are investigated in this research. Different diameter of screw and different span length of sheeting are considered in this research. The failure loads, failure modes the load- deformation behaviour of screwed fastened profile steel sheet under simulated wind load are presented. It was observed that during the increase of loading, the upward deflection of the unscrewed crest became larger than that of the screwed crest. It was found that the local diamond-shaped deformations may progressively develop around the screw fasteners at the support due to uplift load. It was found that structural behaviour of the roofing sheets under uplift loads was greatly dependent on different types of ribbed, diameter of the screw and span length of profiled steel sheet. Based on test results, tiles type profiled steel sheet provided better performance than others types. Finally, the finite element analysis (FEA) investigation is conducted to explore the investigation on structural strength and behaviour of different types profiled steel sheet roofing elements under simulated wind uplift. Good agreements are found between test and numerical result