Thin Glass in Architecture - Possible Applications and Challenges

Thin glass offers a promising prospect for lightweight façades with reduced use of raw materials, also opening up entirely new perspectives for architectural expression with its excellent optical quality as well as its high flexibility. The realisation of projects featuring thin glass as a structur...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Özhan Topcu, Vladimir Marinov
Format: article
Langue:EN
Publié: Challenging Glass Conference 2020
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:https://doaj.org/article/4e75e7498a4a43ca9c54ff6efaa83e10
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
Description
Résumé:Thin glass offers a promising prospect for lightweight façades with reduced use of raw materials, also opening up entirely new perspectives for architectural expression with its excellent optical quality as well as its high flexibility. The realisation of projects featuring thin glass as a structural element is so far limited due to several challenges led by structural issues mainly induced by the product's low stiffness. This paper attempts to bypass this issue by exploring the possibilities of the structural application of thin glass as a membrane element using examples of all-glass projects from the past as well as researches conducted in the present. The use of thin glass as a compressive member is impractical since the risk of buckling poses a greater threat than stress exceedance. As an alternative, its application as a tensile member is proposed, supported by examples from academic and industrial researches. In this context, a new type of glass support is introduced, enabling a moment-free load transfer into the glass.