Failure behavior of annealed glass for building windows

Abstract

The failure strength of annealed float glass is difficult to predict accurately due to several factors that influence the glass’ mechanical behavior, including stress rate, environmental conditions, fabrication process, glass thickness and the presence of surface flaws. Some of these parameters strongly depend on the construction practices of each country. This study aimed to assess the failure strength of annealed glass commonly used in the construction industry in Mexico, based on experimental tests. It is also determined experimental data dispersion as function of the glass thickness. The approach employs destructive tests on annealed glass plates subjected to out-of-plane loading in a coaxial double ring (CDR) test setup and analytical linear and a geometric non-linear finite element analyses. The mechanical behavior determined by the numerical model agrees with the failure strength and deflection obtained experimentally. The results show the mean failure strength of glass specimens with several thicknesses typically used in Mexico, and the analysis of data dispersion is also presented. The statistical analyses of glass failure strengths with thickness range 3–19mm indicate that all samples cannot be considered coming from the same population and data dispersion depended on glass thickness. Finally, the use of the experimental results for evaluating mean failure strength of glass panels and a comparison with expected wind-induced pressure in buildings located in two sites in Mexico is exposed.