Assessment of Pull-through Failure of Nail Connection for Rural Roofing System under Wind Load in Malaysia

Roof collapse due to wind load impact on roof sheeting during thunderstorm event was reported by media. In most cases, failure of roof sheeting based on two points, either on material roof sheeting or at connection of roof sheeting. It was observed that the most failure of roof sheeting is likely occurred for non-engineered building. Base on MS 1553:2002 wind load for building structure, structural elements should be able to resist wind speed up to 32.5 m/s. Therefore this study is conducted to identify the possibility of the pull-through failure of nail connection with Corrugated Galvanized Iron (CGI) roof sheeting for non-engineered buildings. This study is focus on the connection between roof sheet metal and nail connection with various spacing between the connections. Finite Element Method was used in this study to analyse and identify the load distribution. From the result it shows that the maximum spacing of nail connection is 480 mm to resist the wind load recommended by MS 1553:2002. From the result it can be concluded that as the spacing of connection increases the failure of CGI metal roof also increases. The rapidly increase in numbers of damage due to wind-related disaster events over the last few years in Malaysia has created the awareness among the Malaysian society. In order to enhance the resistance of the building structure to withstand wind storms, further understanding on characteristic of wind - structure interaction is needed. Malaysia is located near the equator. In general, the wind climate is dominated by the two monsoon seasons and the inter-monsoon thunderstorms. The north-eastern monsoon blows from December to March, usually accompanied by heavy rains. Around June to September, wind blows in the south-western monsoon which is slightly tranquil. Thunderstorms frequently occur during the inter-monsoon periods. Although thunderstorms are localized phenomena, they often produce significant strong and gusty surface winds. These winds from thunderstorms are relatively stronger and more turbulent than those of monsoon winds. (3) Unlike in cyclone prone region, the thunderstorms in Malaysia occurs in micro scale (4). Despite their small size and short duration of thunderstorm which is about 15 to 30 minutes, many damages has been reported in Newspapers. From the previous study, roof was the most damaging