Studies on determining the bending strength of thin glass

Abstract

In architecture, the term ‘thin glass’ is normally used for glass less than 3 mm thick. The present study aimed to address the lack of reported research concerning appropriate testing configurations and derivation of analytical equations for calculating the bending strength of thin glass to enable its use in architectural applications. Two testing methods (a modified four-point bending test and a buckling test) for determining the bending strength of thin glass are presented, supplemented with analytical approaches for calculating the relative tensile bending stresses. These methods take the geometrical non-linearity into consideration. Experimental and numerical investigations showed that both methods are suitable and satisfactorily represent the tensile bending stress in the centre of the specimen. It is, however, believed that the modified four-point bending test is preferable since the test equipment according to EN 1288-3 can be used. Use of this equipment is widespread and the test setup and execution are simple. To identify influencing and limiting parameters on the bending strength, a numerical sensitivity analysis was performed. This showed that small variations of the parameters glass thickness, Young's modulus or Poisson's ratio have an influence on the value of the tensile bending stress.