An experimental study on fastener anchor system supporting curtain wall and cleaning robot

Abstract

The robot systems working on the exterior surfaces should move freely on all surfaces while transferring safely the diverse working loads and the self-load to the fixing structures. For these purposes, there are two methods recommended, one is being fixed into the building structures with rails being pre-installed inside, the other is being fixed into the reinforced curtain walls. Therefore, from this study, which is testing the sustaining capability of the fixing parts where the load of curtain wall and the robot itself are weighing, we wish to develop the fixing structures of good qualities while satisfying constructability, safety, economic feasibility and etc. The review on the past construction methods are showing that the consecutive fixing structures formed on the slab side are to reduce the fixing iron parts numbers and to improve constructability which will shorten the construction period and provide the economic viability. However, the fixing parts of slab side are short of edge distances suggested by the design code that it is difficult to measure the anchor's capability. So, in order to cope with the short edge distance while to maintain the fixing status, a thin steel sheet is used to reinforce the slab side. From this experiment, we have attained the tensile strength of each fixing part and which is compared to the value suggested by the design code. The final results are as follows. 1. The existing design code requires the edge distance of 1.5times the anchor's embedment depth but we have achieved the more tensile strength than the design code suggests. 2. From two kinds of experiments on the tensile strength, the current design code (ACI 318-08) requiring the anchor embedment depth within 100mm is so conservative that it needs to be modified. 3. The study is proposing the ideal slab side details for the ideal breakout failure such as the slab thickness more than 180mm and the embedment depth less than 75mm.