Simple Laminated Glass Panels with Embedded Point Connection under Short-Term Load

Abstract

Glass is a very attractive material for contemporary architecture. The trend is to achieve a maximum transparency of structures; therefore it becomes common to use glass as a material for load-bearing structural elements. Glass facades, roofs, beams or columns are widely used in buildings. The problematic part of a glass structure design is the connection between the glass pieces or between the glass elements and substructures from another material (e.g. steel, concrete etc.). The connection must be capable of bearing the stresses performing during the lifetime period and it should be as unobtrusive as possible at the same time. The ongoing research at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague is focused on an embedded laminated point connection for glass structures. Within this research, the real-scale glass panels were tested. The samples consisted of two glass plies bonded with the EVA foil. For the undrilled ply, the float glass was used in all cases. The thermally toughened or the heat strengthened glass was used for the pre-drilled ply. There was one embedded steel countersunk bolt with HDPE liners placed in each corner of the sample. During the experiment, the samples were horizontally placed using the embedded bolts. The load-bearing capacity of the six tested specimens was determined. The load was applied in several loading and unloading cycles until the collapse of the first embedded connection. If the glass panel failed before the connection, the sample was completely unloaded and then the load was gradually increasing until the collapse of the connection. Vertical deflection and the stresses at two different points were measured during the loading cycles. The humidity and the temperature were also monitored. The experiment showed the way of collapse and a short-term load-bearing capacity of a laminated glass panel with four embedded point connections.