Impact of Table Size on the Performance of Thermo-Plastic Roofing Systems Under Wind Uplift Pressures

Roofing systems have always been vulnerable to strong wind uplift pressures. wind forces havedynamic effects on structures, as they change in time and space. therefore, a dynamic means ofevaluating roofing systems is necessary in order to identify the component of the system havingthe least resistance to wind uplift forces. although researchers worldwide have conducted testson roofing structures, they have all used various table sizes, as there is still no standard chambersize for experimental purposes. this paper aims to study the impact of table size on roofingsystem performance. to achieve this objective, extensive analytical work has been conductedto investigate the performance of roofing systems subjected to wind pressure. analytical resultscompared well with those obtained from experimental work, validating the numerical modeling.this paper presents some of these result comparisons. it was found that an increase in tablewidth beyond a certain level, about 3 m for cases considered here, did not significantly changethe results, while the rate of fastener load change might be high for a smaller table width. thisspecific limit depends on the roofing system configuration. furthermore, a larger membranewidth (fastener row spacing) would increase the width of the ideal table. ideal table sizes werealso suggested for various configurations having a tpo (thermo-plastic olefins) membrane andcorrection factors were eventually developed for different table sizes.