Reinforced glass beams lecture for Verre 2006

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Reinforced glass beamslecture for Verre 2006

• Dr.ir. F.A. Veer

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Glass in architecture

• Glass has played an important role in
  architecture as the material that opens up a
  building to light.
• An important example are the great rose windows
  of the medieval cathedrals.

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Cathedral of Notre dame , Paris
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Glass in architecture

• Although these windows are very dramatic they
  need extensive supporting masonry as they weaken
  the structure.

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Crystal palace, London , 1851
19th century greenhouse, Madrid, Spain
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Glass in architecture

• Although glass appeared to take a leading role it
  was still only a material that separated the
  interior and exterior.
• It was only some twenty years ago that glass
  started to be used in a limited structural role.

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Grand Serres of cite des sciences et de
lindustrie at la Villette
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Glass in architecture

• This marks a transition from non-structural to
  limited structural use of glass.
• This also raised the important question
• How far can we go in using
• glass as a structural material ?

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Glass as a structural material

• It also raises the question of what loads we can
  put on glass in
• Tension
• Bending
• Compression
• Bending will be the focus of this presentation

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Glass beams

• Monolithic annealed float glass
• Tempered float glass
• PVB laminated tempered float glass
• Sentry glass laminated tempered float glass
• Cast resin laminated tempered glass

• Polycarbonate laminated glass
• Carbon fibre reinforced glass
• Stainless steel reinforced glass

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ING office, Budapest
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Glass museum, Kings Wingford, England, PVB
laminated roof beams
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Apple store, New York , use of Sentry glass
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Wolfson building of the medical faculty of the
university of Glasgow
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IHK building , Munich
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Carbon fibre reinforced glass roof beams for the
loggia di vicari
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Stainless steel reinforced glass beam after
testing
TU Delft all glass paviljon 2004
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Failure behaviour
stress
Monolithic glass
PVB laminated glass
Reinforced glass
PC laminated glass
strain
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Stainless steel reinforcement

• In 1995 the ZAPPI research program started.
• Goals was to develop safe transparent components
  for a transparent building of 202020 meters.
• This means beams of large span, columns etc. as
  well as the technology to put it together.

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1997
Glass polycarbonate beam
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2001
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2002
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2002
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Glass box section reinforced beam, 2003
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2003
Glass T-section post-tensioned beam
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2004
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Further improvement

• Although the 2004 result showed large and safe
  beams can be made research is continuing in
  several directions.
• This with the following aims

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Further improvement

• how to increase the ease of manufacture
• what is the required volume of reinforcement
• what is the optimum configuration for the
  reinforcement
• - what is the optimum configuration for the glass
  
• What is the best adhesive for the reinforcement
• What is the maximum length that can be attained

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Ease of manufacture
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Required volume of reinforcement
thickness
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Reinforcement configuration
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Adhesive type
Stainless steel reinforced glass bonded using GB
368 adhesive
Stainless steel reinforced glass Bonded using
araldite 2013 adhesive
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configuration for the glass
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configuration for the glass
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maximum length
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Conclusions

• The results so far show that reinforced glass
  beams
• can exceed the 6 meter length limitation imposed
  by the standard glass panel size
• can have a build in structural safety mechanism
  which shows considerable deformation after
  initial cracking and thus cannot collapse
  spontaneously
• can in theory be used as structural member of the
  main load bearing construction
• have a length limit of about 20 m
• can result in innovative architectural solutions

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Conclusions

• The main obstacles to introduction of reinforced
  glass beams are
• the lack of an adequate knowledge base on which
  to design the components
• the problem in joining the glass components
  together
• the lack of knowledge about these components at
  the architecture and engineering level
• the lack of clearly applicable building codes for
  the regulatory body
• the need for specialised staff and expertise for
  the contractor