Wind action on glass and Brown''s integral

The action of fluctuating wind pressure on glass panels is considered, making use of ‘Brown's integral’ formulation of glass damage accumulation. A probability distribution for wind pressures, with nonzero skewness is used to compute the expected damage during a wind storm of given duration. The damage accumulation rate is found to be strongly dependent on the intensity and skewness of the probability distribution. The contributions of various amplitude ranges to the damage integral are examined. The major contributions to the damage are found to come from isolated peaks occurring at infrequent intervals during a storm. Current design practices are examined making use of the ‘design coefficient’ concept.