Investigation of closed-form solutions to estimate fatigue damage on a building

If a stress process is wide-band, it is not obvious what constitutes a cycle and how cycles should be counted so that the Minerʹs rule can be employed. If a stress process is non-Gaussian, the stress process may cause accelerated fatigue damage. In this study, high-cycle fatigue damage for fasteners of curtain walls on a side face of a square building is estimated by not only closed-form solutions that consider the effects of wide-band and non-Gaussian characteristics, but also rainflow analysis that uses rainflow cycle counting method to determine the number of cycles and the magnitude of stress amplitude or range that are needed to employ Minerʹs rule. The fatigue damage estimations are compared to investigate the applicability of the closed-form solutions for initial design calculations.