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Abstract
Evaluating the structural integrity of curtain walls during the life cycle of a building project can assist architects in developing better designs, inform manufacturers on the needs to produce stronger building elements, help contractors establish better installation methods, and allow facilities managers make informed maintenance decisions. Data obtained and recorded from manual inspections is inaccurate, insufficient and unreliable, and thus an automated process is needed. A case study included in this paper presents the effort to develop an automated process to identify a seamless association between three different technologies used to evaluate structural integrity specifically, deformities as the focus of this study, in building elements. A curtain wall component of an existing building was investigated in this study. As more buildings incorporate daylighting, storefront and curtain wall construction has become a much larger portion of the building envelope. Although Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for structural analysis has been studied with regards to its use in conjunction with Building Information Modeling (BIM), curtain wall analysis has been limited. The study included the steps as follows: A Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) scans were obtained and then a 3D as-built model was created from a set of point clouds, and further analysis was completed using FEA to potentially identify any structural issues. The combination of scan-to-BIM to FEA was used to showcase the potential of software packages already in use in the design and construction industry. To obtain exact geometry of the wall, 3D laser scanning, using a Faro Focus3D Lidar scanner was used to accelerate the data collection process. SCENE software was then used to automatically register the multiple scans to develop an as-built model of the curtain wall. Lastly, FEA on the BIM model of the curtain wall was completed. When conducting FEA, the model is split into minute elements which act as a prototype on which the forces are applied, and deformation and distress is calculated accordingly. This deformation and distress are developed on one singular element which represents the deformation of the entire wall system. SOLIDWORKS structural analysis software was used for FEA. The results from FEA informs of deformities in the structure and shows the amount of load the structure can support before there is a risk of structural damage. This harmonious three-step technique quickens the entire process of identifying the risks to a building element and the more prevalent use for these commonly used software packages would be beneficial to all the stakeholders involved in the life cycle of the building, including professionals in design, construction, and facilities management (FM).