A multiple buffering high-fall protection structure and its impact response

Abstract

High-fall accidents are the most serious safety accidents in the global construction of tall buildings, and existing techniques cannot effectively prevent large-energy impact accidents such as the overall fall of construction formwork, resulting in huge safety risks. Therefore, this paper proposed a flexible protection structure with multiple buffering mechanisms by using a high-strength steel wire net as the intercepting component, and energy dissipators and buffer supports as the buffering and energy dissipation devices. Based on the mechanical model of the critical components, established a simulation model for the overall falling dynamic impact protection of construction formwork, and carried out four cases of parameter analyses that used the material of the intercepting net, whether to use energy dissipators and buffer support as control variables. The analyses show that the multiple buffering and energy dissipation mechanisms composed of steel wire net, energy dissipators, and buffer supports can effectively reduce the response of each component. Nine sets of parametric analyses based on the finalized structure were conducted with the stiffness of the intercepting net and energy dissipator as parameters The results indicate that the smaller the stiffness of the intercepting net and energy dissipator, the better the structural performance. The novel structure proposed in this paper can effectively protect against large-energy falling object impacts and improve the safety of building construction.