Refined test set-up for pure torsion of laminated glass

ir.-arch. Dieter Callewaert, dr. ir.-arch. Jan Belis, prof. dr. ir. Rudy Van Impe, prof. dr. ir. Guy Lagae & dr. ir. Wesley Vanlaere, Ghent University, Laboratory for Research on Structural Models, Department of Structural Engineering

In literature, a method has been proposed in order to investigate the influence of time and temperature on the shear modulus of the laminated glass interlayer. The test set-up was meant to measure the twisting moment that is required to wring a laminated glass plate over a certain angle.

Numerical simulations revealed that this test set-up, however, showed some important drawbacks. These are i) impure torsion due to a large distance between the axis of torsion and the median of the test specimen, and ii) the presence of important secondary moments and stresses due to improper boundary conditions.

For this reason, a numerical study was performed in order to perfect the set-up. The first improvement was to move the rotating axis to the centre of the laminate. Through this, the plate is subjected to pure wringing. The second adjustment was to change the geometry of the supports. The contact width of the original bearings locally prevented the natural deformation of the specimen, which causes local stress concentrations. For this reason, they were replaced by round line-bearings, which reduced this effect substantially.

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The Authors

Mr. Dieter Callewaert ir.-arch. UGent Dieter Callewaert is a civil engineer-architect. He graduated in 2006 at Ghent University in Belgium. In september 2006 he started as a PhD researcher at the Laboratory for Research on structural Mode... Read more