Thermo-mechanical behaviour of laminated glass panes

Prof. Ing. Maurizio Froli, Dr. Ing. Leonardo Lani
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Università di Pisa

Tests on the mechanical behaviour of layered glass are traditionally performed on small specimens. This paper illustates the experimental results dealing with the mechanical and thermal behaviour of two full size layered glass plates (3000x2000mm) supported on the edge points and reinforced by prestressed stainless steel cables.

The two specimens, respectively thermally and chemically tempered, were submitted to three different stages of laboratory tests essentially in order to evidence how the Poly-Vinyl-Butyral (PVB) was able to transfer shear stress between the multiple layers under the action of thermo-mechanical load histories.

At a first stage it was studied the structural response of each plate under environmental temperature oscillations within a 70 hours time period.

In a second test step, different load patterns were applied to define both short and long time structural behaviour.

Finally, the failure modes of both plates were observed and analized.

The comparison between FEM predictions and experimental results allowed to estimate the actual PVB shear modulus in large layered glass plates submitted to 2D bending.

Full Text Article [693 KB]

The Authors

Dr. Leonardo Lani Engineer University of Pisa Leonardo Lani, born 1971, received his civil engineering degree from Univ. of Florence in 2001, and his PhD degree from the Univ. of Pisa in 2006. He is presently Research Contractor. Read more