Behaviour of laminated glass beams reinforced with pre‐stressed cables

Abstract

Structural glass corresponds to an innovative material with extraordinary aesthetical and architectonic potential that has undergone significant technological advances in recent years, yielding it stronger and safer. For this reason, the use of structural glass has increased considerably in the last decade and is now an unavoidable presence in most of recent reference buildings. The structural capacity of glass elements is brought in from reinforcing techniques of different types. One of the possibilities corresponds to pre stressed cables reinforcement. This technique is very effective in terms of resistance and deformability and corresponds to a light reinforcing element rendering the so called spider web effect. In the framework of the research project “S‐Glass: Structural performance and design rules of glass beams externally reinforced” [1] study the behavior of laminated glass beams reinforced by too twin external steel rods. The work presented in the current paper is within the framework of S‐Glass project aiming at characterizing the behavior of reinforced laminated glass beams in the non‐crack regimen. For this purpose experimental and numerical analysis were prepared. The numerical model was used for a cable layout optimization analysis. Furthermore an analytical solution is put forward, which tackles the beam‐cable load transfer indetermination. Final conclusions are established on the bases of a comparison established between experimental, numerical and analytical results.

Adaptive glass panels using shape-memory alloys

“…Exterior pre-stressing is an innovative technique that allows to efficiently control deformations and stresses in large LG panes or beams (see Jordão et al (2014), for example), due to the high eccentricity of the cables. In accordance with this design concept, the cables are typically anchored to the structural glass assembly and arranged in a polygonal layout.…”

“…Often, especially in these last years, the improvement of both the pre-cracked and post-failure structural performances of structural glass assemblies has been proposed in the form of hybrid and composite technological solutions, namely derived by the interaction between traditional structural glass elements and steel reinforcements and tendons (Martens et al 2015;Bedon and Louter 2014), GFRP layers (Martens et al 2015;Neto et al 2015) or external steel cables (Cupac and Louter 2015;Jordão et al 2014;Louter et al 2014;Kamerling 2012).…”

Finite-element analysis of post-tensioned SG-laminated glass beams with mechanically anchored tendons

“…Different post-tensioning strategies are explored, such as tendons integrated within the beam web such as (Bos et al 2004;Louter et al 2014), or tendons placed externally such as (Díaz et al 2011). Also, distinction can be made between tendons placed linearly along the beam web, or tendons that are placed such that they provided an uplift to the beam (Weller and Engelmann 2014;Jordão et al 2014). Finally, post-tensioning strategies with either unbonded tendons that are mechanically anchored at the beam ends, or with tendons that are adhesively bonded along the length of the beam are investigated .…”

The TVT Glass Pavilion: Theoretical Study on a Highly Transparent Building Made with Long-Spanned TVT Portals Braced with Hybrid Glass-Steel Panels

“…In particular, active pre-stressed beams showed excellent performance: these include beams with a single [8,9] or double [10] glass web reinforced with external tendons, beams with metallic reinforcement adhesively [11][12][13] or mechanically [14] bonded at the bottom side, and two-sided reinforced glass beams [15,16]. Concerning two-dimensional systems, hybrid solutions are less diffuse than hybrid beams even though glass as a shear frame restraint has been used since the nineteenth century (i.e.…”