Innovative steel-glass components for high-performance building skins: testing of full-scale prototypes

Abstract

High-innovation of products is a worldwide key-competitive factor. The most important technological achievements in modern architecture are attained by constructing smart building skins, usually by combining glass and metal. The European Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) project "S+G" (Steel+Glass) studies steel-glass composite systems for high-performance skins using adhesive junctions meeting requirements of as well energetic, technical and aesthetical disciplines. Within the research project cold-formed glass elements with a hyperbolic paraboloid shape were developed, where glass is structurally bonded with a metal frame. One of the focuses of the project was on full-scale tests on three different kind of prototypes, which have been performed to study the steel-glass composite system with various adhesives under different loading. Indication of several applicable adhesives for the steel-glass junction were provided. Among the products available on the market, three different-in-type materials were considered: High performance structural silicone, polyurethane-based adhesive and an innovative silicone structural adhesive. The strength and stiffness of single cold-formed cells under out-of-plane loading with regard to loads acting perpendicular to the surface were assessed, especially regarding the action on bent glass, the long-term behaviour

Cold bending of vertical glass plates: Wind loads and geometrical instabilities

“…It must be indeed remarked that the results provided by the study depend on the assumed boundary conditions for the glass units, and the use of more rigid clamps as proposed e.g. in [27,36] can possibly shift the snap-through limit above safe levels.…”

“…In the second part of the study the effect of wind load on vertical glass panels in façades has been investigated numerically by applying a uniform pressure, acting almost perpendicular to the surface, to glass shells bent into an anticlastic shape. In comparison to previous experimental and numerical research on this subject [27,36,44] the novelties of the present study are: (i) the consideration of vertical plates, which allows to disregard the effect of gravity on the deformed shape of the plate, and…”

“…Being wind a short term load, long term effects are avoided; however high wind pressure can induce large stresses in glass panes, as well as modify their curved shape resulting in optical distortion of images and impaired aesthetic function [9,[34][35]. Extensive research on the effect of out-of-plane loading on innovative cold bent glass-steel hybrid cells for building skins was conducted in the framework of the European Research Fund for Coal and Steel project called "S+G" [27], and results of full-scale experimental tests, performed on horizontally oriented elements, were presented by Hoffmeister [36].…”

Exploring the Integration of Architectural Design and Advanced Structural Analysis for Steel–Glass Structures: A Comparative Study of Different Case Scenarios

“…Building envelopes are usually constructed of glass or metal. Innovative building skin systems can contribute to the evolution of modern architecture [13]. Segura and Feldmann [14] propose that the glass elements are subjected to a combination of wind loads and static loads transferred from the entire structure.…”

Experimental and numerical characterization of twisting response of thin glass

“…Several researchers have studied the arising of this kind of instability, mainly from the experimental and the numerical point of view (Datsiou and Overend 2016;Hoffmeister et al 2017;Spagnoli et al 2019;Quaglini et al 2020), considering glass plates of standard thickness (of the order of 10 mm). In (Staaks 2003), Staaks proposed an empirical formula to evaluate the buckling limit δ * , defined as the maximum prescribed corners' displacement above which the instability arises, for square panels with standard thickness, with free edges.…”