GLASS BEAM DESIGN FOR ARCHITECTS: BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE MOST CRITICAL FACTORS OF GLASS BEAMS AND EASY

COMPUTER TOOL

by Lei Fu

A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF BUILDING SCIENCE

August 2010

Copyright 2010

Lei Fu

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to everybody who helped me to complete this work and 2 years graduate study in USC. Without their help and support, I would never have been able to finish this work. I would like to express my deepest thanks to Professor G. Goetz Schierle, the committee chair of my thesis, for his guidance and encouragement during the whole process. Also thanks to my committee members, Professor Douglas Noble, Professor Anders Carlson and Professor Gail Borden, who helped me to find such a good topic, solve structural problems and work on the right direction. Thanks to Mic Patterson and Jeffrey Vaglio for their help on glass studies.

Thanks to Professor Marc Schiler, director of MBS program, who brought me to the U.S., and all faculties in the MBS program. Thanks to the School of Architecture for awarding me the GRS scholarship. Thanks to all the teammates of MBS program to accompany me these two years.

Thanks to my parents and families members. I love you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ii List of Tables..vi List of Figures.ix List of Functions....xii Abstractxiii Chapter 1: Introduction to Glass Beams..1 1.1 Glass Beams.....1 1.1.1 Glass Beam Application in Architecture..1 1.1.2 Existing Buildings with Glass Beams..5 1.1.3 Advantage of Glass Beams.10 1.2 History of Glass and Glass Beams.....11 1.2.1 Glass in the Prehistoric Era.12 1.2.2 Glass Used for Architectural Purposes...12 1.2.3 Glass in Modern Architecture and the Pursuit of Transparency.14 1.2.4 Structural Glass-Glass Fins and Glass Columns.16 1.2.5 Glass Beams17 1.2.6 Further Development of Structural Glass Research24 1.3 Current Research and Target of This Thesis..25 Chapter 2: Properties of Glass and Glass Beam Manufacturing27 2.1 Glass as Structural Material...27 2.2 Glass Manufacturing......29 2.2.1 Glass Manufacturing.29 2.2.2 Mechanical Properties of Glass....36 2.3 Glass Beam Composition...43 2.3.1 Lamination.43 2.3.2 Limit of Single Span Coming from Manufacturing Modulus....44 2.3.3 Sealing.....46 2.3.4 Reinforcement.....47 Chapter 3: Strength of Structural Glass Beams.48 3.1 Griffith Flaw..49 3.1.1 Higher Compression Strength but Lower Tensile Strength....50 3.1.2 Higher Theoretical Strength but Lower Usable Strength...51 3.1.3 Great Variety.51 iii

3.1.4 Strength of Glass under Long Duration Load..53 3.1.5 Strengthened Glass54 3.2 Strength of Annealed Monolithic Glass Panels.....57 3.2.1 Standards and Industry Data57 3.2.2 Strength of Glass..66 3.3 Strength of Monolithic Glass Beams.67 3.3.1 Glass Supporting in Plane Load......67 3.3.2 Glass under Long Duration Load.72 3.4 Strength of Laminated Glass Beams.78 Chapter 4: Glass Beam Calculation..79 4.1 Design Methods.79 4.1.1 ASD...80 4.1.2 LRFD.80 4.2 LRFD Bending Calculation...82 4.2.1 Load and Load Factor...82 4.2.2 Section Modulus84 4.2.3 Potential Breakage of Glass and Modification on Section Modulus.86 4.2.4 Resistance Factor...88 4.3 Deflection Criteria.90 4.4 Buckling.93 4.4.1 Beam Buckling...96 4.4.2 Local Buckling..102 Chapter 5: Excel Tool and the Largest Glass Beam104 5.1 Excel Tool........104 5.1.1 Design Area.105 5.1.2 Material & Structure Area...107 5.1.3 Calculation Area..108 5.2 The Biggest Glass Beams without Inter-brace.109 5.2.1 The Biggest Glass Beams for Roof Design.....109 5.2.2 Several Conclusions.111 5.3 Effect of Interlay Material on Beam Buckling....112 5.4 Rules of Thumb: Heat-treatment, Depth, Layers and Thickness.115 Chapter 6: Verification of the Excel Tool117 6.1 Buildings with Simple Glass Beams117 6.2 Comparison..118 6.2.1 Workshop in Muse de Louvre....118 6.2.2 Glass pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum120 6.2.3 Glass Bridge in Rotterdam....122 6.2.4 Glass Conservatory, Teesdale, Surrey..123 6.3 Conclusion...125 iv

Chapter 7: Future Work...126 7.1 Strength of Glass under Long-duration Load..126 7.2 Lamination...127 7.3 Buckling...127 7.4 Connection Design...128 7.5 Environmental Impact and Protection.128 Bibliography130 Appendices Appendix A..133 Appendix B..135

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Buildings with Glass Beams...6 Table 2.1: Properties of Glass and Several Other Structural Materials.28 Table 2.2: Minimum Glass Thicknesses from ASTM 1300 (03)..34 Table 3.1: Strength Properties of Annealed Glass from Various Codes of Practice.58 Table 3.2: Strength Properties of Thermal Treated Glass from Various Codes of Practice..59 Table 3.3: Strength Properties of Annealed Glass from Float Glass Industry...60 Table 3.4: Strength Properties of Thermal Treated Glass from Float Glass Industry...61 Table 3.5: Standards for Glass Design and Practice in the US..62 Table 3.6: Allowable Design Stress for Various Probabilities of Breakage..65 Table 3.7: Test Result for Single Beams...69 Table 3.8: Test Result for Single Beams in TU Delft71 Table 3.9: Tested Ration of Different Sets of Strength.....72 Table 3.10: Glass Type Factor (GTF) for a Single Lite of Monolithic or Laminated Glass from ASTM-1300 (03)..... 73 Table 3.11: Load Duration Factor, Note-Calculated to 8/1000 Probability of Breakage from ASTM E 1300 (03)....74 Table 3.12: Modified Table of Load Duration Factor, Note-Calculated to 8/1000 Probability of Breakage from ASTM E-1300 (03) 75 Table 3.13: Load Duration Factor of Tempered Glass..76 Table 3.14: Modified Load Duration Factor of Tempered Glass..76 Table 3.15: Load Duration Factor of Heat-Strengthened Glass77 vi

Table 3.16: Summary of Glass Strength78 Table 4.1: Allowable Design Stress for Various Probabilities of Breakage.86 Table 4.2: Resistance Factors of Common Structural Materials...88 Table 4.3: Glass Coefficient of Deviation (%)......89 Table 4.4: Functions for Critical Elastic Buckling Moment Calculation..96 Table 4.5: Coefficient for Slenderness Factors of Bisymmetrical Beams with no Intermediate Buckling Restraints.....99 Table 5.1: 20 Foot Beams for Roof Design.110 Table 5.2: 20 Foot Beams for Roof Design with Sliding when Buckling...113 Table 6.1: Beam for Workshop in Muse de Louvre by the Excel Tool.119 Table 6.2: Beam for Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum by the Excel Tool..121 Table 6.3: Beam for Glass Bridge in Rotterdam by the Excel Tool123 Table 6.4: Beam for Glass Conservatory, Teesdale by the Excel Tool124 Table A.1: Draft Used in this Thesis for Design Decisions & Criteria...133 Table B.1: 8 Foot Glass Beams136 Table B.2: 9 Foot Glass Beams137 Table B.3: 10 Foot Glass Beams..138 Table B.4: 11 Foot Glass Beams..139 Table B.5: 12 Foot Glass Beams..140 Table B.6: 13 Foot Glass Beams..141 Table B.7: 14 Foot Glass Beams..142 Table B.8: 15 Foot Glass Beams..143 vii

Table B.9: 16 Foot Glass Beams..144 Table B.10: 17 Foot Glass Beams....145 Table B.11: 18 Foot Glass Beams....146 Table B.12: 19 Foot Glass Beams....147 Table B.13: 20 Foot Glass Beams....148

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: Glass Beams Application in Architecture.2 Figure 1.2: Check List of Glass Beam Design4 Figure 1.3: Case Study House #22 by Pierre Koenig, 1960, West Hollywood.14 Figure 1.4: Library of Loyola University Chicago with Cable Net Glass Facade by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, 2007, Chicago.15 Figure 1.5: Atrium of the Local Autority Office by J. Brunet and E. Saunier, 1994, St-Germain-en-Laye near Paris.....17 Figure 1.6: Workshop of Muse de Louvre by J. Brunet and E. Saunier, 1993, Paris..18 Figure 1.7: Entrance Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum by Brent Richards of Design Antenna, 1993, Kingswinford.........21 Figure 1.8: Apple Retailer on Fifth Avenue by Rohlin, Cywinski and Jackson, 2006, New York...23 Figure 1.9: Yurakucho Subway Station by Rafael Vinoly Architects, 1996, Tokyo.24 Figure 2.1: Overview of Manufacturing and Processing Stages of Flat Glass..31 Figure 2.2: Comparison of Stress-Strain Graphics of Glass, Steel and Wood..37 Figure 2.3: Comparison of Force-Displacement Graphics of Glass Beams..39 Figure 2.4: Simplified View of Molecular Structure of Glass...40 Figure 2.5: Crack Pattern of Heat-strengthened Glass and Tempered Glass.43 Figure 2.6: Glass Roof for Wolfson Medical Building, University of Glasgow, 2002, by Reiach and Hall Architects......45 Figure 2.7: Exploded View of Lays of Glass Fins Prior to Lamination....46 Figure 3.1: Surface Flow and Scratch of Glass..49 Figure 3.2: Tension and Compression Stress in Glass...50 ix

Figure 3.3: Cracking Starts from Tensile Part of Glass Beams, Tested in Faulty of Architecture, TU Delft........51 Figure 3.4: Stress Cross Sectional Diagram of Heat-strengthened Glass and Tempered Glass....55 Figure 3.5: Compression/Tension Zone in Tempered Glass and Bending Stress Decrease in the Bottom Surface...56 Figure 3.6: Stress Cross-Sectional Diagram of Chemically Strengthened Glass..57 Figure 3.7: Unfactored Load Chart for 6 mm (1.4 in) Glass with Four Sides Simply Supported from ASTM E 1300 (03).....66 Figure 3.8: Glass Sheets under out of Plane Load and in Plane Load...68 Figure 3.9: Test Set-up with Glass Specimens Lying70 Figure 4.1: Simple Beam under Uniformly Distributed Load...83 Figure 4.2: Section of Glass Beam and Stress Distribution...84 Figure 4.3: Beam Deflection Area Method Visualized.91 Figure 4.4: Buckling of Cantilever Beams94 Figure 4.5: Local Buckling of Beams95 Figure 4.6: Inter-brace of Beams...97 Figure 4.7: Plan View of Buckled Beams.101 Figure 4.8: yh and Applied Load.102 Figure 5.1: Excel Tool for Glass Beam Design & Calculation105 Figure 5.2: Design Area...105 Figure 5.3: Material & Structure area..107 Figure 5.4: Calculation Area108 Figure 5.5: Charts of 20 Foot Beams for Roof design with Sliding When Buckling..114 x

Figure 6.1: Workshop in the Muse de Louvre ..119 Figure 6.2: Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum.120 Figure 6.3: Glass Bridge in Rotterdam122 Figure 6.4: Glass Conservatory, Teesdale, Surrey124 Figure 7.1: Comparative Ranking of Resistance to Attach by Six Common Environments....129

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LIST OF FUNCTIONS
Function 3.1: Strength of Glass under Long Duration Load.53 Function 4.1: Allowable Stress Design..80 Function 4.2: Load and Resistance Factor Design.81 Function 4.3: Section Modulus Calculation for Glass Beams...85 Function 4.4: Modified Section Modulus Calculation for Glass Beams...87 Function 4.5: Deflection Requirement to Avoid Vibration Damage.90 Function 4.6: Deflection Criteria for Beam Design...91 Function 4.7: Deflection Criteria for Glass Design...92 Function 4.8: Moment of Interior..92 Function 4.9: Beam Buckling Criteria...........................................................................96 Function 4.10: Buckling Calculation for Beams without Intermediate Constraints..97 Function 4.11: Local Buckling103

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ABSTRACT
This thesis is written to discuss how to choose the right types of glass and dimensions for glass beam design and construction. There is a tendency of structural use of glass recently to achieve maximum transparency on buildings, and glass beam is one of the most popular elements. However, there is only limited information on this new technique and some of the information has not been published to the public, which make it difficult for architects to design and build buildings with glass beams. The primary target of this thesis is to provide an introduction about glass beams to explain how they work, and create tables for size selection. Strength of structural glass is discussed and four primary criteria three structure design, bending, deflection and buckling, are examined.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO GLASS BEAMS

1.1. Glass Beams

1.1.1. Glass Beam Application in Architecture Although Glass is one of the most important and widely used construction materials, its application has been restricted to being a planar load resistant enclosure material for thousands of years, and now is experiencing an innovative transition to being a primary load carrying structural material. Point load carrying glass columns, linear load carrying glass beams and walls as well as glass compression bars have already been designed and built. As a result of the combination of force and full translucency which has never been seen before, structural glass has quickly become popular since its recent inception, and glass beams, one of the most important elements of structural glass, has been widely explored and used, especially in Western Europe, such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

This new structural element is very popular in courtyard extension projects and entrance pavilion projects of various building types, as it is almost perfect for architects to create invisible buildings where people could live or play in a controlled climate and at the same time enjoy natural views and sunshine. Glass beam design is very flexible. Glass 1

can be connected to almost all kinds of architecture elements, such as steel beams, masonry walls, concrete columns, glass columns and fins. Theoretically, it could be strong enough to support decks made of different kinds of materials. However, because of its transparency and other issues, most of the time, glass beams are used to support clear glass panes, and sometimes they are used to support patterned or frosted glass panes. As far as we know, no one has designed glass beams supporting opaque decks such as concrete or wood floors because there are lots of cheaper methods to support opaque decks and people cannot create transparent structures with opaque decks.

Attaching to: Glass elements Architectural elements of other materials

Roofs Bridges Floors

Decks: Empty Clear Glass Patterned Glass Frosted Glass Other Materials

GLASS BEAMS Structural Glass: Glass Fins Glass Columns Glass Walls Glass Arches Compression bars

Retailer Museum Courtyard Covering Pavilion Subway In-between Bridge Single House Office

Extension Preservation Exhibition Entrance Solar House

Composition: Glass Panes Interlay Sealing Reinforceme t

Figure 1.1: Glass Beams Application in Architecture 2

Glass selection is a huge challenge to designers not only because of transparency and aesthetics issues, but also because glass has some delicate structural properties and thus every inappropriate decision architects make could lead to structural failure. As a result, there are more issues need to be taken care of, and sometimes those issues are interrelated with each other. For example, it is necessary to use safety glass to build glass beams, and wired glass is one of the most widely used safety glass types. Is it a good choice to use wired glass for glass beams? The answer is probably no, as wired glass cannot be heat strengthened which means that the strength will be hugely reduced. Color is another interesting issue that has nothing to do with structure but could lead to structural failure of glass beams under certain circumstances. If designers add too much color which leads to a huge amount of solar radiation absorption raising the temperature of beams up to 60 or 80 0C (140-1760F), PVB (polyvinylbutyral) will be melted and the laminated glass will be delaminated. The following is a list of the factors that could lead to structural failure and are important in the architectural design process. A more detailed discussion will be continued in other chapters.

Depth & Thickness Layers Safety glass Frosted glass Patterned glass Color Coating Thermal Strengthen Chemical Strengthen

Interlay Material: PVB SGP CIP EVA

Bolt Clamping Bolt + Clamping Adhesive

GLASS BEAMS

Building Type Structure system Span Deck Material

Manufacturer and fabricator capacity Maintenance Critical Temperature Moisture UV light

Check list of structure and thermal property of glass beam: Strength Stiffness Buckling Stress concentration on connection Thermal expansion Thermal shocking resistance Resistance factor Residual strength Long term effect Possibility of failure

Figure 1.2: Check List of Glass Beam Design

Because of the brittleness and elasticity of glass and suspicion about the mechanical properties of glass, glass beams are currently mainly used only to support glass roofs, which have limited design load requirements. Some architects also have designed glass pedestrian bridges connecting different buildings, and glass floors supported by glass beams have only been used in a few family residence projects. And presently, in order to achieve high transparency, glass beam has been only used to support clear glass decks. 4

Typically, because of the restrictions of glass manufacturing, single span glass beams are limited to 6 meters (19-20 feet). Composite glass beams with reinforcement spanning more than 15 meter (49 feet) have been created and tested, and the potential and capacity of this kind of structural elements are still being explored.

1.1.2. Existing Buildings with Glass Beams In order to help readers get a better understanding of glass beams, a selective list of buildings with glass beams will be presented in this section. These samples almost cover all building types with glass beams and different types of glass beams to give readers a general idea of glass beam application. These buildings are organized chronologically to show the development of glass beams and tendency of this movement.

Workshops in the Muse du Louvre, 1993, Paris, France (Compagno 2002, p.24) Architect: J. Brunet and E. Saunier Engineer/Consultant: Dimension: 4(15mm*600mm*4m) Full Span: 4m

Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum, 1994, Kingswinford, UK (Richards 2006, p.69) Architect: Design Antenna Engineer: Dewhurst Macfarlane Dimension: 3(10mm*300mm*5.3m) Full Span: 5.3m

Glass Bridge of Kraaijvanger Urbis Architectural Practice, 1994, Rotterdam, Netherlands, (Schittich et al. 1999, p.280) Architects: Dirk Jan Postel, Kraaijvanger. Urbis. Rotterdam Engineer: Rob Nijsse, ABT Velp, Dimension: 3*(10mm*300mm*3.2m) Span: 3.2m

Table 1.1: Buildings with Glass Beams 6

Table 1.1: Continued

Demountable Glass Pavilion, 1995-1996, RWTH Aachen, Germany (Wurm 2007, p.108) Construction: Department of Building Construction, RWTH AachenConcept and Design: U. Knaach and W. Fuhrer Dimension: Full Span: Yurakucho Subway Station Cantilever Canopy, 1996, Tokyo, Japan, (Rafael
VinolyArchitects)

Architects: Rafael Vinoly Architects Engineer/Consultant: Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners Dimension:Mutiple* Full Span: 15 feet Arab Urban Development Institute Reading Room, 1998, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, (Wurm 2007, p.153) Architects: Nabil Fanous Architects Engineer: Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners Dimension: 2*(15mm*UN*2.67m) Full Span: 8m

Table 1.1: Continued

Wolfson Medical Building, 2002, University of Glasgow, UK, (Wurm 2007, p.168) Architects: Reiach and Hall Architects Engineer/Consultant: Arup, London Dimension: 2*(19mm*1.3m*3.9m) Maximal Span: 15.5m International Chamber of Commerce (IHK), 2003, Munich, Germany, (Wurm 2007, p.144) Architects: Betsch Architekten Specialist Contractor: Andreas Oswald GMBH, Munich Dimension: 2*(12mm*0.9m*4.5m) (10mm+19mm+10mm)*0.9m*4.5m Full Span: 14m

Glass Bridge of Schwabisch Hall, 2005, Schwabisch Hall, Germany, (Wurm 2007, p.174) Architects: Kraft+Kraft Architekten Engineer: Ludwig und Weiler GMBH Dimension: 4*(12mm*UN*3m) Full Span: 6.2m

Table 1.1: Continued

Great Western Dock, 2005, Bristol, UK, (Wurm 2007, p.171) Architects: Alec French Architects Engineer: Arup, London Special Contractor: Space Decks LTD Dimension: 3*(10mm*0.9m*4.5m) Full Span: 14m

Apple Retailer on Fifth Avenue, 2006, New York, USA (Seele) Architect: BCJ Architects Engineer/ Consultant: Eckersly OCallahan/ Seele/ Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners) Dimension: 5(1/2*1*1010) Full Span: 32

Refectory at the TU Dresden, 2006, Dresden, Germany, (Wurm 2007, p.176) Architects: Maedebach, Redeleit & Partner Architects Engineer: Leonhardt, Andra& Partner Consultant/Test: Prof. Bernhard Weller, Thomas Schadow Dimension: 4*(12mm*350mm*1.45m) Maximal Span: 5.75m

1.1.3. Advantage of Glass Beams Besides the unique aesthetic values of glass beams, they also have several other advantages. Since the beginning of human civilization, people have been dreaming of living in a controllable shelter that could not only protect themselves from the environment and living conditions but also provide them with the benefit of sunshine and natural ventilation. Glazing, which is transparent and operable, is one common way to achieve that goal, and maximum glass application and transparency are two of the important themes of recent architectural history. Glass envelopes have been widely used on modern buildings, and transparent glass structures are the latest trend in this progress.

Glass beams show significantly high benefits for certain types of projects, such as existing building extensions and historic building preservation, where envelopments with minimal visual interruption are needed. Invisible extension projects are the most popular glass beam application in buildings so far. This kind of structure could support additional function requirements without breaking the original fabric relationship of existing buildings.

Although elasticity and brittleness of glass lead to great concerns about structural glass, glass has several advantages as a structural material. Glass has high compressive strength, 10

approximately two times that of steel, and some theoretical tensile strength. The strength/ density ratio, especially compression strength and theoretical tensile strength, of glass is higher than most other structural materials, including steel. In addition, glass has a relatively high elastic modulus, which is one third of steel but still more than two times that of concrete.

Glass beams are also very environmentally friendly because of their transparency and recyclability. Generally speaking, the more transparency buildings have, the more they utilize natural energy. Although people have already created highly transparent envelopes, opaque structural elements still block a huge amount of natural light and view. With the help of structural glass, people can make maximum use of sun-shine and enjoy the views outside. Environmentally friendly design must consider the lifecycle view of the product, and production of new materials produces pollutants: waste heat, CO2, dust and so on. As cullet (waste glass that is crushed to be melted to form new glass) is an essential ingredient in the manufacture of float glass, it is possible that glass application could produce zero waste and needs minimal energy over its life cycle.

1.2. History of Glass and Glass Beams

This section includes a brief history of glass and structural glass to help readers understand why people like to build structure with glass, a brittle material that is not 11

favored in existing design theory. Several existing cases will also be discussed in this section and organized primarily chronologically and then grouped into categories based on structural rules to demonstrate the development of structural glass elements and glass beams.

1.2.1. Glass in the Prehistoric Era Naturally occurring glass, especially obsidian, has been used by Stone Age societies all over the world, and the history of manmade glass dates back to the middle of the third millennium BC in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or Old Kingdom Egypt based on recent archaeological evidence. In the Late Bronze Age in Egypt and West Asia, people discovered various methods to get glass. Most of the glass products in that period were colored glass ingots, vessels and common beads. Although they were produced with different methods, much of those early productions relied on grinding techniques borrowed from stone working, which means that the glass was ground and carved in a cold state. During the Hellenistic Period, new techniques of glass production were introduced making it possible to manufacture larger and colorless glass. (Wikipedia 2010)

1.2.2. Glass Used for Architectural Purposes Using glass for architectural design is the innovation of ancient Roman architects. Two revolutions happened in the first century BC: invention of glass blowing method, which 12

makes it possible to make glass panes big enough for architecture, and the introduction of manganese oxide, which makes it possible to produce clear glass. The Romans were so excited about this progress that they began to use these relatively small pieces of glass with poor optical qualities (compared with modern glass panes) in the most important buildings in Rome and the most luxurious villas of Herculaneum and Pompeii. (Wikipedia 2010)

Glassblowing is a technique that involves inflating the molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of the blowpipe, or blow tube (Wikipedia 2010). This technology provides the ability to make glass products of different shapes and create large glass panes. In order to make flat glass sheets appropriate for architectural use, the process of heating, blowing and cooling should be done multiple times. However, there is still a limit to the flatness of this technique. After the process of glassblowing, glass plates are cut to fit a window, and the edges of those disks are usually thicker. When installed in the window frame, those glass panes would be carefully placed thicker side down to provide stability and to prevent water accumulation. As a result, window panes were always thicker at the bottom and thinner on the top, which suggested glass is a kind of liquid material.

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1.2.3. Glass in Modern Architecture and the Pursuit of Transparency Although some architects prefer solid materials, glass was a great contribution to modern architecture. The history of modern architecture could be read as a history of architecture transforming from solid to transparent, as a pursuit of freedom and openness. Examples of this pursuit of transparency are abundant: from the Crystal Palace in the 1850s, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe to the Case Study houses in California and international style high rise buildings built all over the world.

Figure 1.3: Case Study House #22 by Pierre Koenig, 1960, West Hollywood (Wikipedia 2009)

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Engineers have already established a fairly well developed construction system with glass panes and mullions, with pretty good transparency. However, architects and engineers are still not satisfied with it, as no matter how much transparency, they still use opaque mullions. In order to get better transparency, glass structures with cable and bolt connection are used, such as cable truss structures and cable net structures. But the same issue of transparency still exists. How can designers create a kind of structure with 100% transparency?

Figure 1.4: Library of Loyola University Chicago with Cable Net Glass Facade by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, 2007, Chicago (Wikipedia 2009)

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1.2.4. Structural Glass - Glass Fins and Glass Columns Although glass as a building material was used for more than two thousand years, the structural properties of this material did not become a matter of serious research until the late 1980s. Glass, which was mainly used for facade and decoration, began to be considered as a kind of structural material to explore the possibility to design buildings with maximum transparency, and different glass structural elements began to appear.

Glass fins are the oldest and most widely used glass structures, which were first designed in the 1950s, and mainly designed to resist lateral wind load. Foster and Partners designed and built the linear-shaped Sainsbury Center for Visual Art in Norwich (England) between 1974 and 1978 using 60 cm (1.97 feet) wide, 25 mm (1 inch) thick fins of toughened glass for the 307.5 m (98.4324.61 feet) glass wall. The success in use of glass fins to resist wind load prompted the idea of glass columns and beams. Benthem Crouwel Architects completed the house in Almere ( the Netherlands) in 1984 using story-high glazing in the living room consisting of 12mm(0.47 inches) thick toughened glass designed to resist wind load with 15mm(0.59 inches) thick fins of toughened glass. The glass fins also serve as a bearing point for the lightweight roof.

Ten years later architects J. Brunet and E. Saunier built the glass roof for the atrium of the Local Authority Office in St-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, which demonstrated the

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spectacular use of glass columns. 2222 cm (8.448.66 inches) glass columns designed with three layers of toughened glass to support the load of a 2424 m (78.7478.74 feet) glass roof. They are approved for a loading of six tonnes (13228 pounds), but have been calculated to support 50 tonnes (110230 pounds). At end of the 1980s, glass beams, as well as all glass structures, began to be used widely. (Basic information from Intelligente Glasfassaden: Material, Anwendung, Gestaltung by Andrea Compagno)

Figure 1.5: Atrium of the Local Autority Office by J. Brunet and E. Saunier, 1994, St-Germain-en-Laye near Paris

1.2.5. Glass Beams Compared to glass fins and glass columns, glass beams evolved late. In general, they are used as glass roofs or floors and have to carry live load as well as medium- and long-term dead loads. 17

1.2.5.1. Early Glass Beams Just one year before the project of the Local Authority Office in St-Germain-en-Laye, J. Brunet and E. Saunier created a glass roof with glass beams for the Workshop of the Muse de Louvre in Paris. The glass construction covers a three-story light well that is 16m (52.49 feet) long and 4m (13.12 feet) wide with laminated skylight panes composed of four layers of 15mm (0.59 inches) thick toughened glass. The panes are supported by 60cm (1.97 feet) high laminated glass beams of four 15 mm thick strips of toughened glass. Those beams were estimated to support five tonnes. Surprisingly, exhaustive tests, taken later to study the behavior of the material, revealed that the glass beams could actually resist of 12.2 to 14 tonnes.

Figure 1.6: Workshop of Muse de Louvre by J. Brunet and E. Saunier, 1993, Paris (Compagno 2002, p. 24)

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This building shows the idea of connecting different buildings parts with glass roofs or glass floors supported by glass beams. The glass structure is fixed on-to solid nearby elements to provide enough stiffness, while providing perfect transparency to provide views of its surrounding. The architectural office of Kraijvanger and Urbis, Rotterdam (Netherlands) built a glass bridge 3.2 m (10.50 feet) long to provide a first floor link between the offices of two adjacent buildings. Architects Ottavio di Blasi Associati also proposed a glass bridge of the basilica of Aquileia (Italy) to protect the valuable 4th century mosaic floor.

1.2.5.2. All Glass Structure The same year as the project of the Workshop of Muse de Louvre, one year before Local Authority Office in St-Germain-en-Laye near Paris by J. Brunet and E. Saunier, a more exciting and inspired building was built in Kingswinford near Dudley, England. The Entrance Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum designed by Brent Richards of Design Antenna with Dewhurst Macfarlane (structural engineer) is probably the first allglass structure in the world supported by glass columns and glass beams, and was the largest all-glass structure in the world for more than ten years. The structure is 11m long by 5.3m wide (36.0117.39 feet), with 3.5m (11.48) high glass columns supporting the roof.

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Kingswinford used to be famous for its glass industry and became the center of glass manufacture in England since the sixteenth century competing with Venetians. This entrance pavilion was designed to show off the achievement of this field. It is built against the rear wall and projecting side wall of Broadfield House, and its gable end is of rendered blockwork. The structure is a relative simple one-way beam to column system with 300mm high (0.98 feet) beams 1.1m (3.61 feet) apart. The roof is designed to support 0.75 KN/m2 (15.75 psf) snow loading, making it strong enough for a man to work on it for cleaning. Both beams and columns are made of three sheets of 10mm (0.39 inches) glass laminated together, making them 32mm (1.26 inches) thick (with two interlayers of 1mm PVB). At the rear the beams rest on the shoes fixed to the wall; at the front they were connected to the columns by cutting and splicing the laminated sheets to form mortis-and-tenon joints which were bonded onsite with resin laminate. No metal connections are used on this building.

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Figure 1.7: Entrance Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum by Brent Richards of Design Antenna, 1993, Kingswinford (Firman Glass)

1.2.5.3. Two Way Structural System Twelve years later, the span record of the Entrance Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum was broken by the Apple Cube on Fifth Avenue, New York, which is 10 m by 10 m by 10 m (32 feet by 32 feet by 32 feet). This cube, following the idea of Peis Louvre Pyramid of Muse de Louvre, as well as the all glass stair and elevator, is the entrance for the Apple retailer underneath Grand Army Plaza, which shows the great ambition of Apple and the magic of glass application. This building is so successful that, according to a research of photos on Flickr, it is one of the top 20 popular buildings in the world with which people would like to take pictures.

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The roof structure is based on a lamellar principle whereby each 10 feet and 10 inches long beam section across the two-way grid is supported via a pin connection to another 10 feet and 10 inches long glass beam section spanning the other direction. This kind of structure eliminates the need for moment connections through the glass and creates longer spans with shorter single beams. The roof beams are laminated from 5 pieces of 1/2 heat strengthened glass with both ends laminated to a thin stainless steel shoe insert that allows the post connection of a fin plate. The two way glass beam system was first used in the Glass Reading Room of the Arab Urban Development Institute and became popular in later designs. In 2006, Maedebach, Redeleit & Partner designed and built a huge glass roof supported by two way glass beams covering an interior courtyard of 2430m (78.7498.43 feet).

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Figure 1.8: Apple Retailer on Fifth Avenue by Bohlin, Cywinski and Jackson, 2006, New York (Apple Inc. 2010)

1.2.5.4. Interlocking Fins The Yurakucho Subway Station in Tokyo, designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects with Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners and finally finished in 1996, shows a new approach of using glass in beam design. The canopy, 10.6m (34.78 feet) long, 4.6m (15.09 feet) wide and 4.8m (15.75 feet) high at the apex, is supported by three parallel cantilevers composed of several triangular shaped laminated blades. Those triangular blades are bolted to interlock to each other, with one bolt in the center and two at both ends to prevent rotation and torsion. 40mm thick acrylic panels are used there for earthquake safety. Interlocking fins were also used in later designs, such as the glass roof for the 23

International Chamber of Commerce (IHK) in Munich, 2003, designed by Betsch Architects.

Figure 1.9: Yurakucho Subway Station by Rafael Vinoly Architects, 1996, Tokyo (Rafael Vinoly Architect)

1.2.6. Further Development of Structural Glass Research Further experiments and practice continued, aiming to make optimum use of the high compression strength of glass. Glass arches and glass domes, designed on this idea, were presented at Glasstec 98 in Dsseldorf. Glasbogen 2 (glass arch 2) consisted of fourteen 1.64*4m (5.38*13.12 feet) laminated glass panes tested under various loads to the destruction point after the exhibition. The glass dome, built by Seele of Gersthofen 24

(Germany), had a diameter of 12.3m (40.35 feet) with 2.5m (8.20 feet) rise with triangular panes of laminated glass. Two years earlier, a tensegrity glass structure was presented at Glasstec 96. For the Central Hall of the new Lehrter Bahnhof station, Berlin, glass was used as compression elements of the cable truss, and it was demonstrated to be able to carry loads at a stress of 60 ksi by both FEM calculation and experiment. This stress level is higher than the yield stress of stell used as columns in building today. All of those projects show new approaches of using glass as a structural material. However, they will not be covered in this thesis, which is focused on glass beams, and thus the inplane bending resistance of horizontal structural elements.

1.3. Current Research and Target of This Thesis

Numerous studies are underway about glass beams by research institutes, glass designers and manufacturers mainly in Western Europe, especially in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. TU Delft and RWTH Aachen have sponsored glass research centers working on structural glass, and publish papers every year. Valuable data and studies can also be found in UK, Switchland and some other areas. Dewhurst Macfarlane & Partners, Seele and Arup are the most experienced and well known engineers and glass consultants in this area. They have been involved in several of the most challenging projects and create innovative details. Most of their research is presented and published in the GPD conference (Glass Performance Days), and available online, www.glassfiles.com, or in the GPD publications. 25

In general, there are two branches of glass beam study: first, glass property and laminated glass application in architecture; and secondly, glass beam reinforcement. Although glass has been used for thousands of years and thoroughly studied, it has not been used as linear load carrying material. The new application requires us to reconsider this material from a new perspective, and to be restudied again. As there is still a lot of uncertainty about glass and it is the base of the whole study, this thesis will be focused on glass beam theory and design without any reinforcement.

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CHAPTER 2 PROPERTIES OF GLASS AND GLASS BEAM MANUFACTURING

Properties of structural materials are determinant factors for structure form and size selection, while mechanical properties, such as density, strength, stiffness and Poissons ratio, are the most important properties for structural design. Those properties determine load carrying capacities and the deformation of the structure. Other properties such as chemical resistance, thermal resistance, moisture resistance and so on also limit application of glass. Those factors will be discussed in this chapter. Glass and glass beam manufacturing processes also have a strong influence on design and will also be discussed in this chapter.

2.1. Glass as Structural Material

Glass is a material that has been used by humans in everyday life for thousands of years; however, it has not been seen as a structural material until recent decades. People are afraid of structural use of glass mainly for two reasons: brittleness and transparency. The brittleness of glass makes glass break before yielding, which means that nothing could foreshadow the breaking of glass beams and thus people have no warning to get away from potentially dangerous structures. Transparency makes glass beams look light and not strong enough to sustain load and also cause acrophobia. However, if we take a look 27

at the major structural properties of glass, we will find out glass can be a good structural material. Concrete C20/25 _ 140 4200 0.32 _ Glass SodaLime glass 1.5 159 10100 6.5 0.0006-0.17

Steel S235 Refractive Index Density (lb/ft3) E-Modulus (ksi) Tensile Strength (ksi) Elongation at break (%) Compressive Strength (ksi) Limiting Tensile Stress (ksi) Safety Factor Breaking Length (m) Thermal Conductivity (W/mk) Thermal Shock Resistance _ 500 30457 34.8 (yield strength) 25 34.1 31.61 1.1 2800 75 _

Softwood S10 _ 38 1600 2.03 0.7 0.58-3.77 1.3 1.3 1500 0.5/0.2 _

2.9 approx. 72.5 0.15 1.8 45 1.6 _ 1.74/2.61 2.5 480/720 1 40

Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (10-6*1/k) 12 5 or 35 10 9 Table 2.1: Properties of Glass and Several Other Structural Materials (Original Chart from Wurm 2007, p. 36)

Good engineers are always looking forward to create stronger structures with lighter materials. Strength and Strength/Density ratio are two of the most important factors for us to evaluate structural materials. Although tensile strength of glass is only about 20% of steel, it is still many times stronger than concrete and wood, and the compressive strength of glass is even greater than that of steel. The compressive strength/density ratio of glass 28

is nearly seven times that of steel, which is quite impressive. Although tensile strength/density ratio is not as good, it is still nearly 60% of that of steel.

2.2. Glass Manufacturing

Glass manufacturing should be discussed first for two reasons. First, manufacturing processes and abilities limit the accessibility and economical efficiency of the material and structure designers choose. Also, not just any kind of glass is suitable for glass beam design, and it is meaningless to talk about properties of glass in general. Qualified types of glass should be verified first, and then discussed regarding their manufacturing, composition and properties.

2.2.1. Glass Manufacturing The manufacturing process of glass includes primary processes, mechanical processes, thermal treatment, lamination and coating. The primary process produces basic jumbo glass sheets, usually of annealed glass. When they are needed, those sheets will be cut into required size, drilled and edges ground. Thermal treatments will be applied after the mechanical process. Any mechanical processes occurring after thermal treatment will cause strength damage of heat-strengthened glass. Lamination provides a method to bond different pieces of glass together, and shows many benefits from the bond and interlay

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material. The coating process covers the surface of glass with additional materials and layers to improve certain properties of glass.

Most of any further treatments after the primary process have a negative effect on the strength of glass except for thermal treatment. Cutting, drilling and grinding cause mechanical surface damage, and coating as well as lamination causes chemical surface damage. There are two ways to improve the strength properties of glass, thermal treatment and chemical strengthening.

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Figure 2.1: Overview of Manufacturing and Processing Stages of Flat Glass (Wurm 2007, p. 34) 31

2.2.1.1. Composition of Glass The most widely used glass today is soda-lime glass, which accounts for about 90% of glass in the market. It is prepared by melting a mixture of silicon dioxide (silica), sodium carbonate (soda), limestone, dolomite, aluminum oxide and small quantities of fining agents at temperatures locally up to 1675 0C (3047 0F). For all kinds of glass, the primary ingredient is silica (SiO2), which melt at 2300 0C (4200 0F) at a viscosity of 10 Pa.s (100 P). To lower the melting point, sodium carbonate (Na2Co3) is added. And because soda makes the glass water soluble, lime (CaO) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) are added. Generally, soda-lime glass contains 73% SiO2, 14% Na2O and 9% CaO by weight. To improve properties of glass, other recipes may be used which leads to different types of glass.

2.2.1.2. Primary Manufacturing Processes: Float Glass, Rolled Glass, Drawn Glass Millions of tons of flat glass sheets are produced every year in the world and 90% of them are float glass. The glass floating method was invented by Alastair Pilkington in the 1950s. In honor of the inventor, the float glass process is also called the Pilkington Process. During the floating process, glass is melted at approximately 1100 0C (2012 0F) and then poured continuously from the furnace to an approximately 50 meters long (164.04 ft) shallow bath of molten tin. The glass floats on the tin and spreads out until it

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solidifies at approximately 600 0C. Thickness is controlled by the speed at which the solidifying glass sheet is drawn out of the bath. Usually, monolithic glass sheets are between 2mm (0.08 in) to 19mm (0.75 in) thick. After cooling, float glass is cut into jumbo sheet of 3.216m (10.5319.69 ft). Some glass factories produce super-sized glass sheets as long as 12m (39.38 ft) for special purposes. There are four leading glass manufacturers in the world Nippon Sheet Glass (which took over Pilkington in 2005), Asahi, Saint-Gobain and Guardian- providing about two-third of global production of high quality float glass (Approximately 25 million tons). (Wurm 2007, p. 46)

Other methods are also used to produce flat glass sheets, such as glass rolling method and drawing method. The rolling method is mainly used to produce glass sheets with beautiful patterns and colors. The drawing method is mainly used to produce special flat glass to specific needs. However, because of the high dimensional accuracy, geometrical precision and optical quality, float glass is considered to be the only glass suitable to be used in buildings if further processes are needed.

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Table 2.2: Minimum Glass Thicknesses from ASTM E 1300 (03) (ASTM 2004, p. 626)

2.2.1.3. Thermal Treatment: Annealed Glass, Heat-strengthened Glass and Tempered (Toughened) Glass After completing all mechanical work, thermal treatment is applied to annealed glass providing greater resistance to mechanical and thermal loads. Heat treatment could be carried out on all types of basic glass products except wired glass. In this process, annealed glass is heated up-to about 650 0C (1202 0F) and cooled with air blown over both sides quickly. The thermal treatment process has strong influence on the mechanical properties of glass. Generally speaking, heat-strengthened glass is two to four times stronger than annealed glass, while tempered glass is four to five times stronger than annealed glass. Thermal shock resistance is also significantly improved by heat-treatment. 34

Because of the huge amount of energy stored in the glass, tempered glass has different fracture behavior from annealed glass and is thought to be safty glass. However, heat treatment has no affect on the stiffness of glass, which is defined by Youngs modulus (E-modulus), and may be detrimental to optical properties of glass. Tempered glass and heat-strengthened glass cannot be further cut or grinded. Tempered glass also has particular phenomenon called spontaneous fracture because of the high pre-compression on the surface, which leads to great concern for its application as beams.

2.2.1.4. Lamination Laminated glass is made up of several layers of monolithic glass sheets and interlayer materials. Almost all kinds of glass panes (and other materials besides glass) could be used as single sheets. The materials used as the interlayer material are polyvinylbutyral (PVB), cast-in-place resin (CIP), ethylene vinylacetate (EVA), and Sentry Glass Plus (SGP) by Dupont. PVB is the most widely used one, which is used in more than 95 percent of all laminated safety glass. The thickness of the interlayer is a multiple of the film thicknesses of 0.38 and 0.76 mm. Laminated glass is considered to be the ideal glass for structural use because the lamination process substantially improves the load-bearing behavior, robustness, and especially post fracture integrity. Because of the interlayer material, laminated glass can hold its broken fragments, and have the ability to carry load after breakage. This ability is very crucial for structural design.

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2.2.2. Mechanical Properties of Glass Mechanical properties of a material include but are not limited to elasticity, plasticity, strength, brittleness, ductility, hardness and toughness. Mechanical properties are critical factors in structural materials selection.

2.2.2.1. Elasticity, Brittleness and Lamination Elasticity describes the physical property of a material to return to its original shape after stress is removed, while plasticity describes permanent deformation. In modern structural design theories, plasticity is advantageous for structural materials, as plastifying material can still hold certain amounts of load under extreme load. Steel, an elastic/ plastic material, shows this tendency, while glass is an ideal elastic/brittle material. The behavior of glass is similar to concrete in tension or wood in compression or tension. The absence of yield stress, or the phenomena of yield strength being greater than the ultimate strength, implies that glass will break without yielding. The absence of plastic deformation and yield stress makes glass highly susceptible to local over-stressing when used as a structural material. In order to make it easy to understand and use the same terminology as used in other material design, we would like suggest yield strength and ultimate strength are the same thing in glass design, which means the actual stress leading to glass breakage.

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Figure 2.2: Comparison of Stress-Strain Graphics of Glass, Steel and Wood (Wurm 2007, p. 38)

In order to deal with the elasticity and brittleness of glass, safety glass has been adoped for most uses and engineers developed several technologies following different ideas. Wired glass and laminated glass are two of the most widely accepted safety glass. Wired glass is produced by feeding wire mesh into the liquid glass to make sure when glass breaks, pieces will not drop down and could still be held together by wire mesh to have some residual strength. Laminated glass is produced by laminating several glass sheets with interlaying material. When laminated glass breaks, pieces from different sheets will overlap each other to make sure the whole structure will not fall down and keep residual strength. Both of those two methods could improve mechanical properties of glass but laminated glass is preferred and all architectural cases with glass on top of people or

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supporting load are required to be laminated glass by code. The biggest problem of wired glass for structural glass design is that it is produced through a rolling process and rolled glass cannot be further tempered or strengthened. As a result, all glass beams have to be built with laminated glass, and all the existing cases are built with laminated glass too.

The strategy of lamination provides glass with a kind of plasticity and ductility. Because stress-strain graphics can only show mechanical property of material, it is not that helpful for us to understand how the lamination process works, and we would like to use forcedisplacement graphics instead. The force-displacement curve of steel and monolithic beams is the same as the stress-strain curve, while laminated glass beams show some new features. The drawing below is an imaginary force-displacement curve of a four-layer glass beam, which is strong enough to allow breakage of two layers, and we assume glass sheets break layer by layer before the whole structure collapses.

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Figure 2.3: Comparison of Force-Displacement Graphics of Glass Beams

Because actual strength of glass sheets falls into a certain range around the average strength of glass, some sheets will break first under stress below that level and some will break under stress above that level. Whenever one lay break, the total force will stay the same while displacement will increase due to increased stress in the remaining sheets. Because of the lamination, sometimes glass sheets will not break with stress above its strength because other glass sheets will hold it. After the collapse of structure, pieces in different layers overlap each other to provide residual strength. Although several tests have been performed to study the residual strength of laminated glass, residual strength of laminated glass beams is still little studied and unknown.

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2.2.2.2. Strength The strength of a material is the ability to withstand stress without failure. Material strength is defined as tensile strength, compressive strength, bending strength and shear strength. Tensile strength resists tension, compressive strength resists compression, bending strength resists bending (combined tension and compression) and shear strength resists shear (a sliding action).

Figure 2.4: Simplified View of the Molecular Structure of Glass (Wurm 2007, p. 36)

As mentioned before, the main chemical composition of glass is silicon oxide, which is super strong with a theoretical tensile strength of 8 KN/mm2 (1160 ksi) (some argue this value could be as high as 15-20 KN/mm2), which is about 70 times the yield strength of steel. However, this value, or even a close value, has never been observed in reality or testing. Glass fibers incorporated in a matrix of resin have been tested in 1976 by Gordon to have a usable strength greater than 2 KN/mm2 (290 ksi). And the widely accepted tensile strength of annealed glass is only 25-30 N/mm2 (2.9-4.35 ksi), while thermal

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treatment could make it several times stronger. However, strength and design strength of glass is such a complex and important issue that it needs a lot of discussion later.

2.2.2.3. Stiffness Stiffness defines the ability of a material to resist deformation under load, and is measured by the elastic modulus (E-modulus), which is also called Youngs modulus (Ymodulus) in honor of English scientist Young, who defined it in 1807. A higher Emodulus causes smaller deformation under stress. Certain stiffness is needed for structural design, and the widely accepted E-modulus of glass is 70 KN/mm2 (10.150 ksi), which is about 1/3 of the E-modulus of steel. Thermal treatment has no affect on the Emodulus of glass.

2.2.2.4. Thermal Strain and Thermal Shock Resistance Unrestrained objects will expand and contract when temperature increases and decreases. The coefficient of thermal expansion defines the tendency of material to expand or contract with changing temperature. Glass has a big coefficient of thermal expansion, which is about seven times greater than that of steel and concrete. This implies glass structures will either have large thermal stresses if restrained or larger thermal extension if unrestrained.

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Thermal shock describes the phenomenon of cracking caused by rapid temperature change, which is more crucial for brittle materials such as glass and ceramic because of their low toughness, low thermal conductivity and high thermal coefficient. Thermal treatment could significantly improve thermal shock resistance of glass. Typically, it is 40 Kelvin for annealed float glass, but 150 Kelvin for tempered glass and 300 Kelvin for tempered borosilicate glass.

2.2.2.5. Crack Pattern The crack pattern is one of the most useful and important mechanical property of glass for structural glass design for several reasons. Glass generates different patterns under different levels of thermal treatment. It is important for the safety of the glass and ability of it to resistant load after it is broken. Certain crack patterns can also imply impurity of the glass and weakness of glass under different kinds of loads that need special treatment.

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Figure 2.5: Crack Pattern of Heat-strengthened Glass and Tempered Glass (Wurm 2007, p. 55)

2.3. Glass Beam Composition

There will be a brief introduction of how to make a glass beam and problems in this area. Glass beams are not simply made up of monolithic glass sheets hung on top of columns, but of laminated glass sheets with several further processes. Every process will change properties of glass and influence the design method.

2.3.1. Lamination Research on existing glass beam structures and code requirements indicate that all glass beams are built by laminated glass. Unlike laminated wood boards, which are usually 43

laminated horizontally, glass beams are always laminated vertically for two reasons. First, vertically laminated glass provides alternative load paths for the beam, which means that even if one piece of the laminated glass is broken, the other sheets could still carry loads. Secondly, even if all layers of glass sheets are broken, the broken glass pieces are still held together by the interlay materials with some residual load-bearing capacity. The strength of laminated glass beams is mainly determined by the strength of monolithic glass panes, while the strength of interlayers and crack pattern will have strong effects on the residual load-bearing capacity.

2.3.2. Limit of Single Span Coming from Manufacturing Modulus As mentioned before, 90% of architectural flat glass is float glass, while the size of jumbo sheets before cutting is usually 6 meters (19.69 feet) long and there will be a huge price premium for manufacturing, transporting and resembling oversized glass sheets. Oversized glass sheets can only be achieved from limited manufacturers with a limited selection of glass recipes, mainly low-iron glass. As a result, it is a great challenge to build glass beams, as well as other glass elements, longer than 6 meters. Therefore, the single span of one piece of a glass beam is always no longer than 6 meters.

There are several ways to build glass beams longer than 6 meters. Reiach and Hall Architects in Edinburgh designed and built a glass roof supported by glass beams

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spanning 15.5 meters (50.85 feet). As no single glass sheets could be that long, they connected single beams of 3.9 meters long by double shear steel splice plate connection located near the top and bottom. In the project of Yurakucho Subway Station in Tokyo, designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects with Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners, the designers invented the idea of interlocking glass fins to create a cantilever canopy spanning 10.6m (34.78 feet) long. While in the design of Apple Retailer on Fifth Avenue in New York, glass columns of 10 m (32 feet) high are needed. Manufacturers spliced five layers of 10 feet long monolithic glass fins with a central overlap of 3.3 m (11 feet).

Figure 2.6: Glass Roof for Wolfson Medical Building, University of Glasgow, 2002, by Reiach and Hall Architects ((Wurm 2007, p. 168)

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With the ongoing development of the building industry, people want glass sheets bigger and bigger. In the Apple Cube project, engineers, working with manufactures and fabricators, invented a creative way to build glass columns made 10 m (32 feet) long laminated glass. They laminated different sheets interlocking with each other, and used an autoclave, which is usually used for aircraft wings, to work on the lamination process.

Figure 2.7: Exploded View of Lays of Glass Fins Prior to Lamination, (OCallaghan, 2007, p. 3)

2.3.3. Sealing Although glass is a kind of inert inorganic material which is not easily broken down under normal condition, the interlayer materials, such as PVB, CIP, EVA and SGP are organic materials which can easily get mechanical or chemical damage. In order to protect interlayers of glass beams, especially when beams are exposed to outside environments or moisture, edge sealing is needed. It is also a good idea to connect the 46

other side of beams in contact with roof or floor with silicon because in this way, the roof or floor panels could work as braces to prevent the beams from buckling and out of plane bending damage. During the process of lamination, the edge of some types of laminated glass has already been sealed with transparent double-sided adhesive tapes. Silicone is also a good choice for edge sealing. However, improper sealing has a negative effect on the optical properties of glass beams.

2.3.4. Reinforcement In order to deal with the brittleness of glass, minimize the potential for damage on tensile edge of the glass beam and improve the residual load-bearing capacity, researchers are trying to apply additional reinforcement to glass beams. Generally speaking, there are two methods: reinforcement on the top or bottom of glass beams and reinforcement in the interlayer materials. Following the idea of commonly used single material or composite Ibeams, steel, wood and glass flanges on both the top and bottom of glass beams have been developed and tested. Following the idea of reinforced concrete, which uses steel reinforcing elements on the tension side only of beams to resist tension stress, metal fibers or sheets and glass fibers are used on the bottom of glass beams. Fibers could also be used in the process of lamination as a part of the interlayer materials to improve the capacity of broken glass beams to resist load.

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CHAPTER 3 STRENGTH OF STRUCTURAL GLASS BEAMS

Strength is always the first and most important factor for structural material selection and structural design. As mentioned in Chapter 2, glass has high theoretical strength, however, yield strength, especially tensile strength of structural glass panels, is lower than the theoretical strength. The strength of glass is not mainly governed by the chemical components of glass but by the size of surface flaws, and glass strength can easily be influenced by manufacture, fabrication, installation, maintenance and environment. Because there is plenty of data on strength of glass panels but only limited tests on glass beams, designers are more certain about strength of glass panels than that of glass beams and those tests on glass beams are not sufficiently thorough to be able to draw conclusions. As a result, in order to decide on an allowable strength of glass beams, it is currently better to determine the strength of individual glass panels first and use that strength to find the overall glass beams strength. Two tests will be referenced in this chapter because annealed glass sheets are a type of glass made through the float process, and other types of glass further treatments to annealed glass sheets. It is a generally acceptable method to determine the strength of annealed glass first and get the strength of other types of glass from this strength with modifications. This method will also be used in this thesis.

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3.1. Griffith Flaw

In order to explain brittleness and elasticity of glass as well as the relatively low allowable stress, especially tensile stress, of glass, A.A Griffith proposed his theory in the 1920s, which is widely accepted and called Griffith Flaw Theory. Based on his observation on bulk glass, he suggested that the surface of bulk glass contains tiny flaws, which cause stress concentrations, and the strength of glass is a function of glass flaw size. His theory explains the mystery of glass strength and several unique phenomena that are shown in glass beam tests. Furthermore, those flaws have already been observed in real life.

Figure 3.1: Surface Flow and Scratch of Glass (Button & Brain 1993, p. 213 & 214)

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3.1.1. Higher Compression Strength but Lower Tensile Strength Glass has high compression strength, about 7.2 ksi for annealed glass panels, but poor tensile strength, about 2.8 ksi. Glass, especially glass beam, typically breaks from its tensile rather than compressive strength. It is easy to understand and explain this phenomenon with Griffith Flaw Theory. When one wants to break a piece of paper into two pieces, it is much easier to try to tear it than to stretch it. If one wants to stretch it, it is easier to stretch paper with a split, even a very tiny split, than paper without a split, and the paper always breaks from the split first. However, if one wants to crush a brick, tiny cracks or flaws will not greatly reduce the strength, and the brick does not necessarily break from cracks first. As a result, compression strength has never been tested on glass panels, and strength of glass always implies tensile strength or bending strength.

Figure 3.2: Tension and Compression Stress in Glass (Wurm 2007, p. 37)

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Figure 3.3: Cracking Starts from Tensile Part of Glass Beams, Tested in Faulty of Architecture, TU Delft (Annealed Glass Left, Tempered Glass Right) (Bos et al. 2005, p. 3)

3.1.2. Higher Theoretical Strength but Lower Useable Strength Accepted strength of annealed glass panels is no more than 1% of the theoretical strength of glass. Although most parts of glass could resist high stress, glass will break from Griffith flaws first because the fabric of glass structure is damaged there and bending stress is higher than average. However, researchers cannot test stress on those flaws and can only get average stress in the glass when it breaks, which is generally accepted as the yield or ultimate strength of glass.

3.1.3. Great Variety Strength of float glass shows a great variety; however, the strength will not drop below certain values. Most of the time strength of glass will fall in the range of 25-100 MPa (3.6-14.5 ksi), which demonstrates the size of Griffith flaws will also fall in a certain 51

range. Generally speaking, strength of glass sheets shows a kind of relationship with surface/volume ratio. And normally smaller and thicker glass sheets are stronger than bigger and thinner sheets. This could also be explained by Griffith Flaw theory.

Griffith suggested surface flaws have the following features: 1. the size of these flaws shows great variability, however, they will not be bigger than a certain value without predamage; 2. distribution of those flaws appears to be random. Because flaws of different size distribute randomly, the larger size the glass panel is, the more likely there will be bigger Griffith flaws on the surface, and the lower the strength could be. However, this is only based on statistical analysis. The strength of a 100 ft2 glass panel is not necessarily lower than the strength of a 1 ft2 glass panel. However, the possibility of a 100 ft2 glass panel to have low strength is 100 times that of a 1 ft2 glass panel. This phenomenon is also proven by tests and accepted by most standards. In the current version of ASTM (American Society of Testing and Materials) E-1300, design stress of glass is not simply provided by one table but by pages of graphics with dozens of charts relating to the size of glass. Since glass beams need to be built by large sheets, designers have to be conservative to choose the right strength.

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3.1.4. Strength of Glass under Long Duration Load Another property of the strength of glass is that it will drop with time. Thus, allowable stress for glass under long-duration load is smaller than that under short-duration load. As is proven in both theory prediction and real life, strength of glass does drop. Every time a glass panel is loaded, there will be tension area on the surface, and the tension tends to stretch existing flaws bigger or create new flaws. Every time there is a process on the surface of glass, there is also the possibility to create new flaws or enlarger existing flaws. As a result, glass will lose its strength, and the relationship between load duration and strength is usually described as:

Function 3.1: Strength of Glass under Long Duration Load (Peter 1999, p. 31) Based on various test results, most researchers agree that the number n lies somewhere between 12 and 20 for annealed glass. Pilkington suggests a value of 16, while Schott Glasswerke uses 20.

The strength reduction will not go on without limitation until strength of glass becomes zero. Manufactures generally agree that strength of glass will drop to a certain value above zero and then stop dropping. Both Pilkington and Schott Glaswerke suggest this

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figure to be 7 N/mm2 (1.02 ksi) and theoretically it will take glass panels 3170 years to lose their strength from 25N/mm2 to 7 N/mm2 (Peter, 1999, p. 31). However, because strength of glass could also be influenced by other factors, some experts believe this process needs only 50 years in real life for glass without special protection.

3.1.5. Strengthened Glass Griffith Flaw theory could also help designers to understand and find ways to improve the strength of glass. Heat strengthened glass and chemically strengthened glass are two of the most widely used types of strengthened glass on the market. Both heat strengthening and chemical strengthening methods pre-compress the surface of glass panels to achieve higher strength, but heat strengthened glass is particularly preferred as strengthened safety architectural glass because thermal treatment not only improves the strength of glass but also changes the fracture pattern of glass. When heat strengthened or tempered glass breaks, energy stored in the glass will dissipate and cracks will spread all over the sheet. As a result, those glass sheets will break into small blunt pieces without sharp edges.

3.1.5.1. Heat-treatment Heat-treated glass is a kind of further fabricated glass. During that process, glass is heated to a uniform temperature and then cooled quickly. Because cooling and strengthening 54

happen first on the surfaces of glass and then on the core, the surface will be precompressed and the core will be pre-tensioned with a parabolic distribution of stress. Typically, the pre-compressed zone is 20% of the total thickness of the glass on both sides. Because of the pre-compressed surface, when glass panels are loaded, the surface will retain compression or only have a little bit of tension, which will not enlarge Griffith flaws. Because of pre-compression, strength of glass under long-duration load will also improve. Based on the toughness of glass, there are full tempered (toughened) safety glass and partially tempered heat-strengthened glass.

Figure 3.4: Stress Cross Sectional Diagram of Heat-Strengthened Glass and Tempered Glass (Wurm 2007, p. 55)

55

Figure 3.5: Compression/Tension Zone in Tempered Glass and Bending Stress Decrease in the Bottom Surface (Wurm 2007, p. 55)

3.1.5.2. Chemically Strengthened Glass Glass with high sodium could be further strengthened in a hot potassium chloride bath. Sodium ion exchange and densification of the molecular structure create high compressive stresses on the surface. Chemically strengthened glass could be cut to limited extent, and chemical strengthening process could be applied to nearly all kinds of glass sheets. However, because of the small depth of penetration of the liquid, chemically strengthened glass is still highly susceptible to surface defects and fracture patterns may not be improved.

56

Figure 3.6: Stress Cross-Sectional Diagram of Chemically Strengthened Glass (Wurm 2007, p. 54)

3.2. Strength of Annealed Monolithic Glass Panels

Both theory and tests have shown that it is hard to define glass strength in general, even annealed monolithic glass panels. Because this thesis is written for architects, not engineers or glass experts, it is important to simplify the problem and provide some easy rules of thumb.

3.2.1. Standards and Industry Data Standards are always the first thing to check for design. However, all the published strength is strength of glass panels tested under out of plane load, and most of the time, it is strength under short-duration load, which does not define design load. The reason for this is that historically glass has been designed to withstand short-duration loading from wind applied to its surface, not its edge as in the case of a glass beam. 57

3.2.1.1. Standards in Europe and North America Based on research of Peter Robert Crompton in 1999, a list of standards and industry data is created to provide people with a general idea of strength of glass. BS stands for British Standards, which are used in UK. DIN stands for Deutsches Institut fr Normung, which is the German Institute for Standardization. CGSB stands for Canadian General Standards Board and provides general guidelines for structural use of glass. ASTM standards are standards used in the US. LF stands for load factor.

B S 6262 1 982 B ending Strength -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge A llo wable Stress -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge Variatio n With A rea 2.90-4.35

B S 551 6 1 991

B S 7449 1 991

DIN 1 249 1 988

CGSB 1 2.20 1 989

A STM C1 048 A STM E1 300 1 990 1 994

2.90-4.35

4.35

(2.1 8-3.63)/1 .5 2.9/1 .5 Yes No ne apparent

2.1 8-3.63

No t assessed No ne apparent No ne apparent Yes No ne apparent

Yes No ne apparent

Variatio n With Thickness No t assessed A llo wable Stress under Lo ng-duratio n Lo ad -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge

1 .09-1 .63

0.87-1 .02 0.87-1 .03

(0.87-1 .45)/LF 1 .1 6/LF

1 .31 -2.1 8

Table 3.1: Strength Properties of Annealed Glass from Various Codes of Practice (ksi) (original from Crompton, 1999, Table 1a)

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B S 6262 1 982 B ending Strength -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge A llo wable Stress -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge Variatio n With A rea Variatio n With Thickness A llo wable Stress under Lo ng-duratio n Lo ad -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge

B S 551 6 1 991

B S 7449 1 991

DIN 1 249 1 988

CGSB 1 2.20 1 989

A STM C1 048 A STM E1 300 1 990 1 994

1 7.40 1 7.40

1 0.00 9.72

7.98

7.25 7.25

(8.70-1 7.40)/1 .5 1 1 .60/1 .5 Yes No ne apparent

8.70-1 4.50

M inimal M inimal

Yes Yes

Yes No ne apparent

1 .09-1 .63

1 .1 6-8.27 1 .1 6-8.28

(6.96-1 1 .60)/LF 9.28/LF

7.83-1 3.05

Table 3.2: Strength Properties of Thermal Treated Glass from Various Codes of Practice (ksi) (original from Crompton, 1999, Table 1b)

Strength properties of glass are described in different ways, and the variety of these codes proves the statements on the first section of this chapter. All these standards only provide design stress of glass, which is used in the ASD method of design (Allowable Stress Design), instead of considering the strength of glass. Probably this is because it is so difficult to define the strength, however, there is a permissible strength used in the glass industry, under which the size and distribution of flaws can be controlled. Most of these codes provide clues about the relationship of glass size and strength. Strength of glass under long-duration load is smaller than that under short-duration load. And the strength of glass shows great variety. On the issue of allowable stress of annealed glass remote from cut edges, the codes do not agree with each other. As a result, although most of the time codes are the first and most important design information, these codes and standards investigated need to be improved and more information is needed for glass beam design. 59

3.2.1.2. Industry Data Glass manufacturers test and publish strength of their products. This section is also based on research done by Peter Robert Crompton in 1999. He provided a list of major glass manufacturers, and strength of their products.

P ilkingto n

Saint Go batn

Scho tt

PPG

Hankuk

Nippo n

B ending Strength -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge A llo wable Stress -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge Variatio n With A rea Variatio n With Thickness A llo wable Stress under Lo ng-duratio n Lo ad -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge 1 .09 1 .09 2.1 8-4.06 2.1 8-4.07 1 .74 1 .31 4.06-5.95 2.61 -4.06 No ne suggested Yes Yes No ne suggested No ne suggested No ne suggested No ne suggested No ne suggested 7.25-1 3.05 7.25-1 3.05 6.00 6.00 5.37-7.1 1 5.08 7.1 1 7.1 1

No ne suggested No ne suggested

Table 3.3: Strength Properties of Annealed Glass from Float Glass Industry (ksi) (original one from Crompton, 1999, Table 2a)

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P ilkingto n

Saint Go batn

Scho tt

PPG

Hankuk

Nippo n

B ending Strength -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge A llo wable Stress -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge Variatio n With A rea Variatio n With Thickness A llo wable Stress under Lo ng-duratio n Lo ad -Remo te fro m cut edge -Near (o r o n) cut edge 5.66 5.66 7.1 1 4.93 8.56 8.56 No ne suggested Yes No ne suggested No ne suggested 21 .32 21 .32

Table 3.4: Strength Properties of Thermal Treated Glass from Float Glass Industry (ksi) (original from Crompton, 1999, Table 2b)

Manufacturers prefer to use strength instead of allowable stress, because it represents the quality of their products. Generally, the strength from manufacturer data is twice the allowable stress from the codes, and most manufacturers agree that strength of glass panels is somewhat between 5.08 to 7.25 psi (35-50 N/mm2). Because designers are more interested in the optical, thermal and acoustic properties of glass, strength data is not widely available.

3.2.1.3. ASTM Standards ASTM standards are the standards used in the US. ASTM E 1300: Standard Practice for Determining Load Resistance of Glass in Building defines strength properties of glass in

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practice. There are also other standards that concern strength properties such as ASTM C1036: Standard Specification for Flat Glass, ASTM C 1048: Standard Specification for Heat-Treated Flat Glass-Kind HS, Kind FT Coated and Uncoated Glass and so on. A list of standards for different kinds of glass design and construction practice in the US is listed below based on research of Peter Robert Crompton 1999, page 137. Most of those standards are about building envelope construction. American Society for Testing and Materials Standard terminology of glass and glass products. ASTM C 162 Standard test method for annealing point and strain point of glass by fiber elongation. ASTM C 336 Standard test method for annealing point and strain point of glass by beam bending. ASTM C 598 Standard specification for flat glass. ASTM C 1036 Standard specification for heat-treated glass. ASTM C 1048 Standard test method for determining tensile adhesion properties of structural sealants. ASTM C 1135 Table 3.5: Standards for Glass Design and Practice in the US (original one from Crompton, 1999, p. 137) Standard test methods for strength of glass by flexure (determination of modulus of rupture). ASTM C 158

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Table 3.5: Continued Standard specification for laminated architectural flat glass. ASTM C 1172 Standard test method for shear strength of adhesive bonds between rigid substrates by the block-shear method. ASTM D 4501 Standard test method for rate of air leakage through exterior windows, curtain walls and doors. ASTM E 283 Standard test method for structural performance of exterior windows, curtain walls and doors by uniform static air pressure difference. ASTM E 330 Standard test method for water penetration of exterior windows, curtain walls and doors by uniform static air pressure difference. ASTM E 331 Standard test method for structural performance of glass in exterior windows, curtain walls and doors under the influence of uniform static loads by destructive methods. ASTM E 997 Standard test method for structural performance of glass in windows, curtain walls and doors under the influence of uniform static loads by non-destructive methods ASTM E 998

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Table 3.5: Continued Standard practice for determining the minimum thickness and type of glass required to resist a specified load. ASTM E 1300 Standard test method for bond integrity of transparent laminates. ASTM F 521 Standard guide for selection of test methods for interlayer materials for aerospace transparent enclosures. ASTM F 942 American Welding Society American Architectural Manufacturers Association Glass design for sloped glazing Structural properties of glass Field checks of metal curtain walls for water leaking. AAMA 501.2 Recommended practice for stud welding

ASTM E 1300 provides two ways to define allowable stress of annealed glass panels. As is shown in Table 3.6, in versions before 2002, allowable stress under short term load was listed in a table. Load duration is 60 seconds, and the relationship between strength of glass panels for various thicknesses and sizes is not apparent. The strength of glass is also decided by the allowable possibility of breakage, and 8 out of 1000 is the most widely

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used one in the glass industry and design practice. This table also suggests, under 3 second duration load, allowable stress of heat-strengthened glass is always twice that of annealed glass, and allowable stress of tempered glass is always four times that of annealed glass, which is also widely accepted in practice. Although allowable stress is different from strength, they are likely to follow the same rule.

Table 3.6: Allowable Design Stress for Various Probabilities of Breakage (GANA 2008, p. 59)

In later ASTM versions load duration becomes 3 seconds, and graphics showing effect of thickness and size were introduced. Those charts suggest strength of glass panels with four sided simple supports is between 0.5 ksi and 10 ksi, and glass panels with high slenderness are generally stronger.

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Figure 3.7: Unfactored Load Chart for 6 mm (1.4 in) Glass with Four Sides Simply Supported from ASTM E 1300 (03) (ASTM 2004, p. 674)

3.2.2. Strength of Glass Most codes and industry data suggest strength of annealed monolithic glass panels is greater than 6 ksi and the minimal value is 5.37 ksi. However, those values are mean value of tests or average strength of samples. Because designers are going to use glass as structure elements, it is better to be more conservative. In the thesis Assessment of Design Procedures for Structural Glass Beams by Peter Robert Crompton, strength of 25 N/mm2 (3.63 ksi) is suggested for several reasons. It is the minimal tested strength from many tests in different institutes; it is also predicted by statistical analysis from his tests; based

66

on Griffith Flaw theory, glass strength below 3.63 ksi means there are visible flaws on the surface and those pieces of glass are not qualified as undamaged architectural glass. (Peter 1999, p. 47-47) As a result, 3.63 ksi (25 N/mm2) will be used as strength of annealed monolithic glass panels.

3.3. Strength of Monolithic Glass Beams

Although a rationale for determining the strength of monolithic glass panels has been decided, this strength cannot be used directly for glass beam design because glass beams are loaded in a different way to glass panels and show different features. Generally speaking, there are two major differences: first, glass beams undergo in plane bending instead of out of plane bending; secondly, glass beams support long duration loads. Those two issues will be discussed in this section.

3.3.1. Glass Supporting in Plane Load In order to decide strength of glass beams and help designers to do better structural glass design, several research institutes did tests and published data on both monolithic annealed glass beams and glass panels. These tests are good resources to understand the different characteristics of glass beams and glass sheets under in plane load and out of plane load. It is more interesting to know the relationship between strength of glass panels and glass beams rather than simply the strength of glass beams. In other words, the 67

primary task of this section is to define a ratio of strength of glass beams versus strength of glass panels.

Figure 3.8: Glass Sheets under out of Plane Load and in Plane Load

3.3.1.1. Tests by Fair and Williams in 1999 In 1996, Fair and Williams did a series of three point bend test on glass beams in batches of 16 at the University of Oxford and Peter Robert Crompton published the data in 1999 in his paper Assessment of Design Procedures for Structural Glass Beams. The beams were simply supported on smooth curved steel supports 500 mm (19.69 in) apart. A central point load was applied by a steel dowel with a soft piece of rubber hosing between

68

it and the glass. The glass samples were 600 mm (23.62 in) long 100 mm (3.94 in) wide 10 mm thick (0.39 in). The result is published in Table 3.7 below. (For more information about the test, see Assessment of Deign Procedures for Structural Glass Beams, Crompton, page 43-45).
AnnealedGlass InPlane OutofPlane Bending Bending 5.69 6.86 0.49(0.65) 1.12 16.3 5.40 9.02 ToughenedGlass InPlane Outof Plane Bending Bending 19.83 24.92 1.44 1.91 7.3 7.6 17.0022.58 20.7826.97

Failure Stres Statistics Mean StdDeviation StdDeviation(% ofaverage) 8.6(11.4) Range 4.846.66 (4.84 8.12)

Table 3.7: Test Result for Single Beams (ksi) (original one from Peter, 1999, Table 2, p. 45, Coefficient of variability (Std Deviation/Mean 100%) is added by author)

3.3.1.2. Tests in Delft University of Technology TU Delft has a unique group working on structural glass, and numbers of tests were done there. Bos, Louter and Veer organized and did a serious of tests on glass beams and published their data in their paper The Strength of Architectural Glass. Glass beams of size 1000 mm long and 100 mm wide were cut from a single glass plate with a thickness of 10 mm. These were professionally cut on professional cutting machines and finished by grinding and polishing. One third of the specimens were pre-stressed using full 69

thermal tempering, one third of the specimens were pre-stressed using heat strengthening. All specimens were wrapped in PET foil for safety. For the heat strengthened and fully tempered glass multiple layers PET foil were necessary. For annealed float glass a single layer of foil was sufficient. The beams were tested in 4 point bending on a Zwick Z 100 universal testing machine with the specimen lying or standing. To avoid buckling of the standing specimens, the specimen was supported on the sides at 5 points along the length. 1mm thick Teflon sheet was used as an intermediary between the metal supports and the glass to avoid inducing high contact stresses. (Veer et al., 2008, page 2).

Figure 3.9: Test Set-up with Glass Specimens Lying (Veer et al. 2008, p. 2)

The paper includes a table with Weibull analysis results as reproduced in Table 3.8 below.

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Annealed Heat Strengthened Tempered Lying Standing Lying Standing Lying Standing Average Failure Strength (ksi) Minumum Tested Value (ksi) Maximum Tested Value (ksi) Calculated Weibull Strength (ksi) Coefficient of Deviation (%) 6.09 3.74 8.50 3.48 21.80% 3.87 3.07 5.67 2.90 18.30% 15.08 8.53 24.22 7.83 27.70% 10.01 7.96 13.89 7.54 15.30% 22.83 13.94 29.75 12.76 18.90% 13.73 10.53 17.71 11.17 12.40%

Table 3.8: Test Result for Single Beams (ksi) in TU Delft

3.3.1.3. Discussion and Conclusion All tests suggest that strength of glass beams is lower than that of glass panels. Several reasons could cause this reduction. First, the cutting and grinding process will create more and bigger flaws on the edge, and reduce the strength of glass beams. And although those tests were done very thoughtfully, upright glass beams are not as stable as laying flat glass panels. The ratio of Strength of glass under in plane load/Strength of glass under out of plane load is listed in Table 3.9 below. Because the average strength ratio of the second set of tests shows significant difference from the other two results, this set of data will be omitted in the discussion below. Additionally the Weibull strength should be the most useful one for glass strength analysis because it is a professional method for glass strength analysis.

71

Both tests suggest strength of annealed glass beams is a bit more than 80% of that of glass panels. The first set of tests suggest tempered glass will reduce strength more than annealed glass will, while the second set suggest that heat-treated glass will reduce strength less than annealed glass will. It is hard to explain this disagreement. Maybe it is because they used different methods to calculate the strength, or used different methods to do the tests, or they bought glass samples from different manufacturers. In this thesis, a reduction to 80% of in plane strength is suggested, which means the strength of annealed monolithic glass beams should be only 80% of the strength of the same type of glass panels, and the strength for annealed monolithic glass beam calculations should be 80%3.63=2.90 ksi (20 N/mm2). It should be noted that the 80% strength chosen is slightly less than both test results reported to limit overestimating glass beam strength. HeatAnnealed Strengthened Tempered Test one Strength of 82.90% 79.57% glass under in (mean) Test two plane 63.55% 66.38% 60.14% load/Strength of (average) glass under out Test two of plane load (Weibull) 83.33% 96.30% 87.53% Table 3.9: Tested Ration of Different Sets of Strength

3.3.2. Glass under Long Duration Load As mentioned before, the strength of glass will drop significantly under long duration load. Although designers are not sure about how much reduction they get exactly, most experts suggest a value between 3/8 to 1/3 for load period longer than one year, and uses 72

1/3 in practice. ASTM E 1300 (03) will be studied in this discussion. Most research is based on the study of annealed glass, and more research is needed on heat-treated glass.

3.3.2.1. Annealed Glass under Long Duration Load ASTM E 1300 (03) provides several ways to decide strength of glass under long-duration load, and the most widely used one is Table 1 in ASTM E 1300 (03), Glass Type Factor (GTF) for a Single Lite of Monolithic or Laminated Glass. However, this GTF is for load-duration of one month which does not apply to typical duration of glass beams.

Table 3.10: Glass Type Factor (GTF) for a Single Lite of Monolithic or Laminated Glass from ASTM E-1300 (03) (ASTM 2004, p. 626)

In addition to GTF, another useful table is Table X6.1 in ASTM E 1300 (03), Load Duration Factor, which is designed for annealed glass with 8/1000 probability of breakage. ASTM suggests annealed glass retains only 31% of its original strength under load longer than one year. As a result, strength of monolithic annealed glass beams is 3.6380%31%=0.90 ksi (6.2 N/mm2). 73

Based on Table X 6.1 of ASTM 1300 E 1300 (03), Function 3.1 ntf = constant will be studied.

Table 3.11: Load Duration Factor, Note-Calculated to 8/1000 Probability of Breakage from ASTM E 1300 (03) (ASTM 2004, p. 681)

After modification of Table 3.11 using Function 3.1, Table 3.12 is provided below. The glass type factor is used in this table instead of strength, , and the unit of duration is one minute. ASTM suggests n = 16.

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Annealed Duration (min) Constant 1 0.05 0.05 0.93 1/6 0.052189 0.83 1 0.050728 0.72 10 0.052158 0.64 60 0.047537 0.55 720 0.050482 0.53 1440 0.055818 0.47 10080 0.057151 0.43 43200 0.059017 0.36 525600 0.041831 0.31 7095600 0.051615 Table 3.12: Modified Table of Load Duration Factor, Note-Calculated to 8/1000 Probability of Breakage from ASTM E-1300 (03)

Based on Function 3.1, the modified table shows a relative stable constant, which is considered acceptable. The average constant in the table (considering durations up to and including 1 year duration or 525600 minutes) is 0.52, and annealed glass needs 13.5 years to lose 69% of its strength, the value of strength ASTM suggests for load duration over one year.

3.3.2.2. Tempered Glass under Long Duration Load There is no single table defining strength of tempered glass under load of different periods. However based on Table 3.10, the strength of tempered glass will be of its original strength, if it is loaded with load for 1 month. Strength of tempered glass is shown in Table 3.13 similar to Table 3.12. 75

Tempered Duration Constant (min) 1 0.05 0.05 1/6 1 10 60 720 1440 10080 3/4 43200 0.05 525600 7095600 Table 3.13: Load Duration Factor of Tempered Glass

As a result a proper n for tempered glass is 47.5. A new table is created to define the strength of tempered glass and we can find out tempered glass could hold 67% of its original strength under long-duration load (13.5 years). Thus, the strength of monolithic tempered glass beams is 3.63480%67% = 7.83 ksi (53.6 N/mm2). Tempered Duration Constant 1 0.05 0.05 0.9749717 1/6 0.05 0.9388796 1 0.05 0.8944525 10 0.05 0.861341 60 0.05 0.8174393 720 0.05 0.8055974 1440 0.05 0.7732617 10080 0.05 3/4 43200 0.05 0.7115002 525600 0.05 0.6735635 7095600 0.05 Table 3.14: Modified Load Duration Factor of Tempered Glass 76

3.3.2.3. Heat-strengthened Glass under Long Duration Load The same method (65% strength after 1 month of loading per Table 3.10) will used on tempered glass will be used on heat-strengthened glass and we can get constant n = 31.7. As a result, heat-strengthened glass could hold 67% of its original strength under long-duration load (13.5 year) and strength of monolithic heat-strengthened glass beams is 3.63280%55%=3.19 ksi (22 N/mm2). Strength for different types of glass is provided below, which shows the significant benefit from thermal treatment of glass regarding long term load. HeatStrengthened Duration Constant 1 0.05 0.05 0.962731989 1/6 0.05 0.909825373 1 0.05 0.846081702 10 0.05 0.799585565 60 0.05 0.739301134 720 0.05 0.723311147 1440 0.05 0.68024587 10080 0.05 0.65 43200 0.05 0.600476105 525600 0.05 0.553144392 7095600 0.05 Table 3.15: Load Duration Factor of Heat-Strengthened Glass

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Glass Panels (3 second) Glass Beams (3 second) Glass Beams (beyond 1 year) 0.90024 3.194 Table 3.16: Summary of Glass Strength

Annealed Heat-Strengthened Tempered 3.63 7.26 14.52 2.904 5.808 11.616 7.829184

3.4. Strength of Laminated Glass Beams

Many studies have been done to find a way to define the strength of laminated glass. Traditionally, glass is used as a building envelope material under short duration out of plane load (wind, seismic loading); force and load transfer through interlayer materials and are shared by different layers of monolithic glass sheets. However, under in-plane bending, theoretically, laminated glass shows no significant difference from monolithic glass. As a result, laminated glass sheets will be treated as monolithic glass with the same thickness, if it does not buckle. Since interlay materials take only 3% of the whole beam by volume, and are not designed as structural materials, they are not considered in bending calculation.

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CHAPTER 4 GLASS BEAM CALCULATION

Structures fail for various reasons. Some conditions are more likely to happen and some less. Design criteria vary based on building location and importance factor. Typically, U.S. building codes are based on designing buildings of all types to have a life span of more than 50 years. In Los Angeles, buildings must be designed for seismic loads as well which could be problematic for brittle materials like glass. Seismic load will not be discussed in this thesis. Breakage under everyday load, such as dead load, live load and wind load, will be explored. Because of the property of glass, some special issues will be explored in this chapter.

4.1. Design Methods

Allowable Stress Design (ASD) and Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) are the two most widely used design methods used by designers and engineers. ASD is a traditional method, while LRFD is relatively new. Both these two methods examine strain and stress in the structure to assure the material is strong enough to resist the load without breaking and stiff enough to minimize strain deformation.

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4.1.1. ASD In Allowable Stress Design, designers calculate actual stress in material to assure it is below allowable stress limits, which are typically the yield strength divided by a safety factor. ASD could be described as a function as: Stress breaking strength / safety factor Function 4.1: Allowable Stress Design

Stress in the structure is determined by structure types and load applied; strength is decided by the material used and the Safety Factor (SF) is decided by the experience and research of experts. Because there are unpredictable conditions a safety factor is used to reduce the possibility of failure to an acceptable level, but not too high to get material waste. However, as structural glass has been used for only a few decades, the experts have less experience and so it is not easy to define a proper Safety Factor right now.

4.1.2. LRFD Load and Resistance Factor Design is a new design method used for concrete design first in the 1960s. Instead of comparing actual stress with factored strength, LRFD

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uses factored load and nominal resistance (reduced yield strength), and LRFD for beam design can be described as a function as: (Factored Load / Section Modulus) (Yield Strength / Resistance Factor) where Factored Load = Actual Load x Load Factor Function 4.2: Load and Resistance Factor Design

Instead of single Safety Factor used to limit allowable stresses, LRFD uses two separate factors, the Load Factor and the Resistance Factor. The load Factor is primarily defined by the type of load and increases the load to be checked, and the Resistance Factor is primarily defined by the material used to build the structure and the type of loading and reduces nominal capacities based on structural behavior. This method offers safety factors, based on probability, used to calculate and evaluate the structure. The Load Factor also offers more rational safety to LRFD, amplifying uncertain live load by 1.6 but predictable dead load only by 1.4. More and more engineers use LRFD to design and teach in collage. Calculation of this thesis is based on LRFD. Because LRFD is more exact than ASD, sizes of structure elements are usually smaller than by ASD but LRFD provides less safety.

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4.2. LRFD Bending Calculation

Glass beams are structural elements primarily loaded in bending, so they should satisfy the function below: (Factored Load / Section Modulus) (Yield Strength / Resistance Factor) where Factored Load = Actual Load x Load Factor Function 4.2: Load and Resistance Factor Design

Several items need to be decided: load and Load Factor, section modulus, yield strength of structural glass and Resistance Factor.

4.2.1. Load and Load Factor This thesis is written for glass beam design in the Southern California area to resist live load and dead load, and the life span of the glass beams is assumed to be 50 years. The beam is assumed to be a simple beam, which means that it is supported with a roller support on one end, a pin support on the other end, and loaded with uniformly distributed load.

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Figure 4.1: Simple Beam under Uniformly Distributed Load

Although code required live loads are different for different types of buildings, in order to simplify the problem, the most widely used values in the California Building Code are going to be used in this thesis, which are 50 psf for office floors and 20 psf for roofs. The typical load cases are 1.4 DL or 1.2 DL + 1.6 LL, so the factor changes on dead load depending on whether it is combined with live load or not.

In order to create ideal transparency, glass beams are more likely to support glass panels on top and are not likely to support equipment. As a result, dead load is mainly the glass panels on top of the beam. Usually designers use laminated glass with each sheet thicker than 3/8, and use more layers on floor design because that provides more safety. Two layers of laminated glass, each layer of heat-strengthened glass would be enough to support the roof load, and three layers of laminated glass with each layer of 1/2' heatstrengthened glass would be enough to support the floor load. Compared to the weight of

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glass, the weight of the interlay material could be omitted. Weight of glass beams should be calculated as dead load, and estimated to be one third of glass panels on top in this thesis based on case study and calculation. Generally accepted density of glass is 163 lbs/ft3 (pcf), and distributed dead roof load is about 17 2/3 psf and distributed dead load for floor design is assumed 26 1/2 psf. The load Factor for dead load is 1.4 as required by code.

4.2.2. Section Modulus

Figure 4.2: Section of Glass Beam and Stress Distribution

Section Modulus is determined from the cross section and composition of the beam. Glass beams could be built with glass sheets of different thickness, however, in order to simplify the problem, only beams built with glass sheets of equal thickness will be

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discussed in this thesis. And this thesis only assumes laminated rectangular glass beams of glass sheets and interlayer material. The effect of the interlayer material is omitted in this simplified calculation for several reasons.

First, compared with glass sheets, interlayer material is only a tiny part of the beam cross section. PVB is the most popular interlayer material for laminated glass, and the thickness of one PVB film is 0.38 millimeter (0.015). As a result, if designers choose PVB as the interlayer material, the resulting thickness of the interlayer is a multiple of PVB film thickness of 0.015, and interlayer with 2 or 3 layers of film is preferred, which will be explained later. Taking a glass beam made up of 3 layers of 3/8 glass sheets for example, the total thickness of beam is 33/8+220.015=1.125 and PVB takes only 5% of the beam by volume. Additionally, bending strength of PVB is less than glass. Finally, more research is still needed about the effect of interlayer material on laminated glass under in plane bending. As a result, the thickness and effect of the interlayer material is omitted and laminated glass is simplified to be monolithic glass sheets with the same thickness. These simplifications allow the section modulus of the rectangular beam shown above to be calculated as: Section Modulus S=nbd2/6 (n=3 in the case) Function 4.3: Section Modulus Calculation for Glass Beams

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4.2.3. Potential Breakage of Glass and Modification on Section Modulus Before strength based design of glass, designers needed to spend time on modification to the section to provide more safety to the beam because of the elasticity and brittleness of glass. Elasticity and brittleness are the two main reasons that lead to conservative design for the structural use of glass because there is a possibility that glass sheets will break below assumed design strength, it is difficult to predict when this will happen, and it is almost impossible to define the yield strength of glass without testing. In steel structures, designers do not need to worry about the safety of the structure if stress is below yield strength since ductile yielded would be evident before failure, however, this does not work on glass. ASTM E 1300 proposes different design stress values corresponding to the possibility of breakage (Table 4.1).

Table 4.1: Allowable Design Stress for Various Probabilities of Breakage (GANG 2008, p. 59)

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In order to reduce the possibility of failure of glass beams, one could suggest that they should be strong enough to allow one glass sheet to break and redistribute load to the remaining sheets, which means the beam will not fail until two or more sheets break. Although manufacturers are trying to provide products with better mechanical properties, not all glass sheets will reach the required strength, and 8 out of 1000 probability of breakage under required stress is allowed by most codes. If designers design a glass beam that is just strong enough to sustain the design load, there is a 8 out of 1000 probability that the beam will fail. In order to reduce this unacceptable possibility, additional layers and redundancy are necessary. If a 3-layer beam is strong enough to sustain load with only 2 layers, the possibility of beam failure is reduced to 0.8%0.8%=64 out of one million. And because it is almost impossible for those two layers to break at the same time, without a disaster like an earthquake or terrorist attack, one has time to replace broken beams with new beams. Of course, designers can design beams allowing two sheets break, but that would be too expensive and an overconservative use of material. With the modification to the number of layers to minimize breaking failure of glass beams, the Section Modulus function should be: Section Modulus S = (n-1)bd2/6 (n = layers of glass sheets of the beam.) Function 4.4: Modified Section Modulus Calculation for Glass Beams

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4.2.4. Resistance Factor In LRFD, the resistance factor modifies the mechanical properties of the material. Although theoretically precise structural materials will not fail if the stress is below yield strength, not all fabricated elements of the material will meet this requirement due to variations in the processing, handling, curing, mixing, and other aspects of the production of structural materials. Also, because structural behavior is idealized in analysis designers cannot accurately predict how the structure will behave to real boundary conditions, tolerance errors, and imprecise section properties. This would also make it dangerous to make full use of the strength. As a result, comparing factored stress with yield strength multiplied with a resistance factor reduces the probability of failure. Standards and codes recommend resistance factor for different materials and loading types.

Table 4.2: Resistance Factors of Common Structural Materials (Schierle 2008, p. 143)

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Generally speaking, the quality of materials with a smaller range and coefficient of deviation is better and could be designed with larger resistance factor. Based on the results of two sets of tests referenced in Chapter 3, structural properties of glass are relatively stable. Compared with timber, which is a widely used structural material, strength of glass is easier to predict. Annealed Lying Standing Heat-Strengthened Lying Standing Tempered Lying Standing

Set One 16.3 8.6 7.6 7.3 Set Two 21.8 18.3 27.7 15.3 18.9 12.4 Table 4.3: Glass Coefficient of Deviation (%) (From tests in University of Oxford and TU Delft University of Technology)

The first set of tests shows a smaller coefficient of deviation. Although the second set is not that good, compared with timber, a widely used structural material, glass is still not as bad as imagined. The typical timber coefficient of deviation is between 10% and 30%, while the coefficient of deviation of glass is between 7% and 28%. From this point of view, glass deserves a higher or similar resistance factor as timber, whose resistance factor for bending is 0.85.

However, glass is a brittle and elastic material, and designers need to be conservative in structural design with glass. The smallest value used on major structural materials is 0.8 89

for masonry bending design, which happens to be another brittle and elastic material like glass. As a result, the author suggests a resistance factor for glass between 0.85 and 0.80. Glass beams with no more than 5 layers have a resistance factor of 0.85 because they have less surface area and less Griffith flaws, while glass beams with 5 layers or more have a resistance factor of 0.80.

4.3. Deflection Criteria

Deflection does not necessarily lead to structural failure, however, sometimes large deflection damages the function and if it is large enough to be visible, people will feel unsafe. The generally accepted deflection requirements for beam design are span/360 for live load only and span/240 for combined live load and dead load. Another thing to check is vibration, and a simple rule of thumb in metric units is F=16/ (d1/2) Hz Function 4.5: Deflection Requirement to Avoid Vibration Damage

Assuming d is the midspan deflection of a beam under permanent load in mm and F is the first natural frequency in Hz. Engineers design for F>5 Hz to avoid dynamic excitation by foot traffic or by wind.

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Figure 4.3: Beam Deflection Area Method Visualized

The generally accepted deflection equation used on traditional, timber and steel beams design is: =5/384 WL3/(EI) (Except for E, this equation is ONLY defined by geometry) : Deflection W: total load applied as uniform distributed load L: Span of Beam E: Elastic Modulus I: Moment of Inertia Function 4.6: Deflection Criteria for Beam Design

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However, a more conservative function is proposed for glass design, especially for out of plane bending, and referenced and verified by Jan Belis et. al (Monolithic Calculation Model for the Out-of-plane Bending Laminated Glass Beams). In his paper, Belis also suggested the interlayer material has almost no effect on the in plane bending of glass beams and designers can treat laminated glass beams as monolithic glass beams of the same thickness. =11/768 WL3/(EI) Function 4.7: Deflection Criteria for Glass Design

Because bending deflection is more likely determined by the geometry instead of the material, and there is only a small difference between those two functions, the classic beam deflection function is used in this thesis. The moment of inertia equals: I =nbd3/12 n: number of layers in the laminated beam b: thickness of single layer d: the depth of beam. Function 4.8: Moment of Interior

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4.4. Buckling
The extraordinary slenderness of glass beams leads to great concern regarding buckling damage. The typical width/depth ratio of rectangular timber and concrete beams is 1/3 to 1/5, while most of the as-built glass beams have a width/depth ratio as high as 1/10 or even higher. There are two main types of buckling, global buckling of beams and local buckling of beams. Buckling of beams refers to the phenomenon that whole beam will displace out of plane under in plane load by twisting, while local buckling refers to the phenomenon that a part of the beam will deform and fold out of plane. Buckling only happens under compression and bending. Even a beam that has almost ideal pinned supports has compression on top and any fixity of the supports or imperfections in the beam geometry or load direction can cause the beam to buckle if the loads are large enough.

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Figure 4.4: Buckling of Cantilever Beams (Trahair, 2009)

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Figure 4.5: Local Buckling of Beams (Lamont 2001, Figure 4.6)

There is no specific function available to describe buckling of glass beams. However, designers have been building glass fins and fin buckling has been studied before. As both glass beams and glass fins take in plane load, the buckling behavior is the same and buckling design method of fins will be used in beam design. In Structural Use of Glass in Buildings published by the Institution of Structural Engineer in the UK, a glass fin buckling calculation method of the Australian Standard AS 1288-1994 is provided, and will be used in this thesis.

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4.4.1. Beam Buckling In buckling design and calculation, the design moment shall not exceed more than the critical elastic buckling moment (MCR) divided by a factor of 1.7. M MCR/1.7 Function 4.9: Beam Buckling Criteria

Design moment (M) is the un-factored bending moment, which equals to wL2/8 for simple beams under uniform distributed load. Functions used for MCR are different depending on intermediate buckling restraints. Beams with Intermediate MCR=(g1/Lay) [(EI y) (GJ) ]1/2 Buckling Restraints Beams without Intermediate MCR=(g2/Lay) [(EI y) (GJ) ]1/2[1-g3(yh/Lay) [(EI y) Buckling Restraints /(GJ) ]1/2] Continuously Restrained MCR=[(/La)2(EI y) [d2/4+y02]+(GJ) ]/(2y0+yh) Beams below Neutral Axis Table 4.4: Functions for Critical Elastic Buckling Moment Calculation

As stated before, only beams with no intermediate buckling restraints will be discussed in this thesis. Appendix H in Structural Use of Glass in Buildings gives information about buckling calculations of other beams. The formula for beam without intermediate buckling restraints will be used in the following discussion. 96

Figure 4.6: Inter-brace of Beams

MCR=(g2/Lay) [(EI y) (GJ) ]1/2[1-g3(yh/Lay) [(EI y) /(GJ) ]1/2] MCR: Critical elastic buckling moment g2 & g3: Slenderness factors Lay: Distance between effectively rigid buckling restraints E: Elastic Modulus G: Torsional elastic modulus J: Torsional moment of inertia Iy: Moment of inertia along the weak axis yh: Height above the beam centroid of the point of load application Function 4.10: Buckling Calculation for Beams without Intermediate Constraints

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Several issues need to be explained further.

First, the value of the coefficients for slenderness factors g2 and g3 are determined by connections and applied load. In order to prevent unnecessary movement which is likely to cause damage of the glass, it is better to use fixed connections properly designed to resist y-y axis (weak axis) rotation. As a result, g2 equals 6.1 and g3 equals 1.8.

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Table 4.5: Coefficient for Slenderness Factors of Bisymmetrical Beams with no Intermediate Buckling Restraints (Institution of Structural Engineer 1999, p. 152)

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Lay refers to the distance between effectively rigid buckling restraints, and in the present case, Lay equals the beam span.

E is the elastic modulus, which cannot be changed by thermal-treatment, and the generally accepted E for glass is E = 10.4106 psi. Please note that the formula has coefficients that depend on the units being used and thus properties are being shown only in these units.

Iy refers to moment of inertia along the weak axis. Because glass beams are made up of laminated glass, when they buckle, they will displace horizontally and different layers have a tendency to slide relative to each other. Iy has to be calculated differently depending on whether the sliding happens or not. The possibility of sliding is defined by strength, stiffness and thickness of the interlayer material as well as load duration. It is hard to describe this phenomenon with functions or numbers at this time. It will not happen without un-predictive load and could be observed. For simplified calculation, the thesis assumes sliding will not happen and further discussion will be mad in Chapter 5.

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Figure 4.7: Plan View of Buckled Beams

G is the torsional elastic modulus and is 28.3 GPa (4104.57 ksi) for glass fin calculations, and will be used in glass beam calculation in this thesis.

J is the torsional moment of inertia and is J = bd3/3 (1-0.63b/d), where b and d are the breadth and depth of the beams.

yh is the height above the centroid of the point of the load application. Is most cases, yh refers to half the height of the beam, if the load is loaded right above the beam. However sometimes, yh could be different if load is loaded as illustrated in the graphic below. In this thesis, only the first and most widely used situation will be discussed and yh equals half the height of the beam. 101

Figure 4.8: yh and Applied Load

4.4.2. Local Buckling Local buckling will not cause deformation of the whole beam, and usually happens at the free edge. Yoxon described a simplified check method in the following formula:

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Mmax<Et3/6(1+v) where Mmax is the maximum unfactored bending moment in the beam E is the elastic modulus t is the thickness of beam v is Poissons ratio. Function 4.11: Local Buckling

Both experience of full-size tests and non-linear finite element analysis have proven that Et3/6(1+v) determines the buckling limit. As mentioned in the discussion of beam buckling, we shall assume different layers will not slide relative to each other and t is equal to bn in this thesis.

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CHAPTER 5 EXCEL TOOL AND THE LARGEST GLASS BEAM

Based on the design approach and parameters chosen in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, an Excel tool is created for glass beam design to help architects find the required depth of beams in 2 inch increments under user provided design criteria. This tool is introduced in this chapter to explore the capacity and selection of glass beams.

5.1. Excel Tool

The Excel Tool is composed of three areas, design area on the left in brown, material & structure area on the left in blue and calculation area in blue on the right. The design area is for architects to input design requirements in the first part and get the correct beam size they need in the second part. This area is most useful for architects. The material & structure area shows us default setting of properties of glass, which is based on the discussion of the previous two chapters, and criteria for structural design. The calculation area is a supporting area to run the tool and shows the users how the tool works. This is an open source tool based on Excel and every parameter could be customized by users, however, it is suggested that most designers do not change anything except the Selection row and Customized Value row in the design area.

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Figure 5.1: Excel Tool for Glass Beam Design & Calculation

5.1.1. Design Area

Figure 5.2: Design Area 105

There are several things need to be decided by architects in order to run the tool, and those requirements are listed in the first part of this area. The basic information row lists allowable choices to select for design. The customized value input/default value provides either default values for each section in blue or space to input customized value within bold borders. Designers need to make a selection for every decision in the select your information row utilizing drop down lists. Default values may be used if the user has no specific preferences or is uncertain of decisions to make for specific options.

The second part of this area provides an overview of the beam sizes necessary to meet the requirements. The first two rows are a report of calculations shown in black. There are minimal depths to meet the requirements of bending stress, deflection criteria and buckling criteria. Smaller numbers indicates the structure is less likely to fail because of that criterion, and the tool will automatically select the biggest number as the depth of beam to ensure that all the criteria checked are satisfied. The last two rows show an overview of the beam.

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5.1.2. Material & Structure Area

Figure 5.3: Material & Structure Area

This area is designed for engineers or advanced architects to process further study of their beam and make modification. There are properties of glass and structural criteria in this area. Glass properties were chosen based on the conclusions of Chapters 3 and 4, and the spreadsheet uses the most common values here. The user may change those values if they have customized glass products which are qualified as structural glass.

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5.1.3. Calculation Area

Figure 5.4: Calculation Area

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This area is a supplementary part of the tool and shows how the tool works. The tool checks the depth of the beam in two inch increments in a range from 0 to 50 inches, because beams with greater depth do not make any sense. If the tool shows designers need to use beams with depths greater than 50 inches, it is likely that the span and loading provided should not be supported by glass beams. The user should not make any change to this part. A table showing how decisions change properties of glass and structure criteria will be provided in Appendix A.

5.2. The Biggest Glass Beams without Inter-brace

Because of the industry capacity of glass manufacturing and laminated glass fabrication, the largest span of glass beams would be 19-20 feet. People could build glass beams bigger than this, but the cost would be huge and could lead to a number of problems. This study limits the span to 20 feet and provides a selection process to decide on glass products and required depths. Levels of heat treatment, thickness of glass sheet as well as numbers of layers will be explored.

5.2.1. The Biggest Glass Beams for Roof Design The calculation report of 20 foot beams with different levels of heat treatment thickness of glass sheets and layers is shown in a list below. All beams with depth larger than 50 inches are shown in red because this calculation indicates glass beams are inappropriate 109

for the parameters chosen. The generally accepted depth/span ratio of horizontal resistance structure ranges from 1/10 (trusses or suspension structures) to 1/20 (beams), and depths out of this range should not be used either. Beams deeper than 24 (1/10 of span) are shown in orange and beams shallower than 12 (1/20 of span) are shown in blue. As a result, properly sized beams are shown in black.

Table 5.1: 20 Foot Beams for Roof Design (AG stands for annealed glass, HG stands for heat-strengthened glass and TG stands for tempered glass) 110

5.2.2. Several Conclusions Several conclusions are listed below. 1. Bending stress is still the governing criterion for glass beam design even though other criteria were considered. 2. Heat-treatment on glass could greatly reduce the required size of beams. 3. Most of the annealed beams fall in the range of red or orange, which indicates that the strength properties of annealed glass are so poor that annealed glass should not be qualified as structural glass. 4. Tempered glass is so strong that some tempered beams even fall in the blue area. Although strength properties of tempered glass are quite good, sometimes this type of glass can suffer spontaneous breakage, especially for area supported by a less developed glass industry. As a result, heat-strengthened glass is recommended as a first choice, and then tempered glass. 5. The more layers designers use, the smaller the resulting depth they get for the beam. They can also cut the overall area of cross section by selecting laminated glass with more layers and thinner sheets. However, because of the capacity of the glass fabrication industry, the more layers they have on laminated glass, the less available those glass beams are. And also, by doing so, the beams get more surface area and edge and introduce more Griffith Flaws, which leads to reduction

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of the strength quality. As a result, three or four layers are recommended, which are also the most widely used numbers in existing glass beams. 6. Simply increasing thickness of glass sheets will cut down the depth of beams but increase the area of cross section and material needed to build the beam. Similar tables will be offered in Appendix B.

5.3. Effect of Interlayer Material on Beam Buckling

As is mentioned in Chapter 4, as glass beams are constructed by laminated glass, when the beams buckles out of plane, different sheets will slide relative to each other if the interlayer material is not strong enough to hold them. Most previous discussion is based on the assumption that those sheets will not slide, however, if the interlayer material fails first and glass sheets could slide freely, buckling, instead of bending, could be the governing factor. Similar tables like Table 5.1 are created in order to explore the importance of buckling damage with sliding.

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Table 5.2: 20 Foot Beams for Roof Design with Sliding when Buckling (AG stands for annealed glass, HG stands for heat-strengthened glass and TG stands for tempered glass)

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Figure 5.5: Charts of 20 Foot Beams for Roof Design with Sliding When Buckling

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As shown above, buckling will be the governing factor instead of bending stress, when designers use thinner glass sheets with low levels of heat-treatment. And most of the time, the transition between buckling governing and bending governing happens on thickness of 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch, which are also the most widely used thicknesses and recommended thickness.

The assumption that interlayer material will completely fail and different layers will slide freely towards each other is one extra condition that is not likely to happen on well fabricated laminated glass beams. And a balance between free sliding and no sliding is needed. A lot of papers have been published about the effect of interlayer material on the structural property of laminated glass. The interlayer effect on laminated glass beams is quite new and requires huge amount of further experiment and study. As a result, at this time, it is better to assume that the interlay material could be strong enough.

5.4. Rules of Thumb: Heat-treatment, Depth, Layers and Thickness

As shown in the discussion above, most glass beams made up of annealed glass or laminated glass with two sheets cannot meet the structural requirements and should not be used. Heat-strengthened glass could be the first choice because it is strong enough to sustain load and does not have the problem of spontaneous breakage and waste of material. 115

As stated before, depth to span ratio should be in the range of 1/20 and 1/10. If we use the same type of glass, increasing depth is a powerful strategy to reduce the cross-section area of beams and use less material. It is also a powerful strategy to reduce the damage of buckling. As a result, 1/10 ratio is recommended for glass beam design.

For glass beams with sliding, the thickness of the beam, which equals the number of layers the thickness of one sheet of glass, is another crucial factor for design. Increasing layers could increase the safety factor in design and reduce the thickness of a single sheet of glass as well as the overall area of beam cross-section. However, it is not practical to use laminated glass made up of thin glass sheets and too many layers. As a result, 3 or 4 layers are recommended, and the thickness of every sheet should be between 3/8 and 5/8.

In summary, the depth of glass beams should be around 1/10 of the beam span. It is safe to build the beam with laminated heat-strengthened glass using three or four layers. The thickness of every sheet should be between 3/8 and 5/8. Glass beams following these rules of thumb will not fail even if sliding happens when the beams buckle.

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CHAPTER 6 VERIFICATION OF THE EXCEL TOOL

To verify the Excel tool for glass beam design, the calculation results of the tool were compared with actual dimensions of existing glass beams. There are twelve buildings listed in Chapter 1. Several of them are selected and examined in this chapter. Because most designers are more interested in glass type, depth, number of layers and thickness of beams, the specified information of those points will be listed, but other parameters are chosen as default values without specification.

6.1. Buildings with Simple Glass Beams

As discussed and stated in the previous chapters, this tool is not designed for all kinds of glass beams. It is a tool for simple beam design: rectangular single span simply supported beams in one way structures. As a result, there are only four buildings that match these requirements: Workshop in Muse de Louvre, 1993, Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum, 1994, Glass Bridge is Rotterdam, 1994, and also considered was the Demountable Glass Pavilion in RWTH Aachen, 1995-1996. Because the Demountable Glass Pavilion was a temporary exhibition structure and then demolished, there is limited information about the building, and it will not be used in the verification. A building designed by Philip Wilson will be used. The designer published 117

all the information about this building on Glass Processing Days 2005, Construction of All-glass Structures with External Glass Frames.

6.2. Comparison

6.2.1. Workshop in Muse de Louvre The workshop in Muse du Louvre is one of the earliest projects using glass beams, and it is a very conservative design. This project was designed by architects and J. Brunet and E. Saunier in Paris to cover a three story high lightwell 4m (13.12 feet) wide. They used laminated glass made up of 4 layers of tempered glass sheets. Every layer of the glass sheets is 15 mm (5/8 inch) thick and the beam is 60 cm (23.62 inch) deep. The glass roof is constructed with the same kind of glass as the glass beams. This structure is designed for 24 psf (5 tonnes) load, while later tests revealed that it could take a loading of about 14 tonnes. (Compagno, 2002, p24) Because the structure is 2.44 to 2.8 times over designed, a proper depth of this design should be 15.14 to 14.14 inch. Spacing of the beams is unknown in this study and is estimated by the author to be about 4 feet.

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Figure 6.1: Workshop in the Muse de Louvre (Compagno 2002, p. 24)

Based on the information provided above, a report is generated by the tool and listed below and the design depth of the tool is only 10 inch. Calculation of this tool (10 inch) shows great difference between the as built one (23.62 inch) and proper ones (15.14 to 14.14 inches).

Thickness of Glass Sheets (inch) 5/8

StressStrength 10

Deflection (<L/360) 6

Deflection (<5/12") 6

Local Buckling 0

Buckling 2

Depth (inch) 10

Cross Section (inch2) 25

Table 6.1: Beam for Workshop in Muse de Louvre by the Excel Tool

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6.2.2. Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum The glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum designed by Brent G. Richards and Robert Dabell was an ambitious design at that time. It is located at Kingswinford in UK, which used to be famous for glass products, and the new museum was designed in honor of that history. This building kept the record of the largest structure with structural glass in the world for several years, and is still the only building without any metal connections between glass elements.

Figure 6.2: Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum (Firman Glass)

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The glass beams are designed to span 5.7 m (18.70 feet) and support a glass roof 11 meters (36.09 feet) long and 5.7 meters (18.70 feet) wide with live load of 0.75 KN/m2 (15.6 psf) for snow load and maintenance. Beams are 30 cm (11.81 inches) deep and constructed of laminated glass with 3 layers 3/8 inch thick each. Spacing between beams is 1.1 meter (3.61 feet) (Schittich, 1999, p. 282). Although the author did not mention which kind of glass was used for the glass beams, tempered glass was used on the glass roof and glass walls. Designers most likely would have used tempered glass on glass beams too. The glass roof construction is not clear and will use default values from the tool.

Based on the information provided above, a report is generated by the tool and listed below. Design depth from the tool is 12 inch which agrees well with the as built design (11.81 inches).
Thickness of Local Cross Glass Sheets StressDeflection Deflection Bucklin Bucklin Depth Section (inch) Strength (<L/360) (<5/12") g g (inch) (inch2) 3/8 12 8 8 0 2 12 13 1/2

Table 6.2: Beam for Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum by the Excel Tool

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6.2.3. Glass Bridge in Rotterdam This 3.2 meter (10.50 feet) long glass bridge was designed by architects Dirk Jan Postel to connect rooms of the Kraaijvanger Urbis architectural practice. It is supported by two beams on both sides. Although the shape of glass beams on this bridge is not perfect rectangular but following the line of moment diagram, they could be calculated by the tool, base on the maximum bending moment and depth at mid-span. The glass floor of this bridge is constructed by 2 layers of 15 mm (5/8 inch) thick tempered safety glass and estimated to be 1.5 m (4.92 feet) wide. Beams are 30 cm (11.81 inches) deep and made up of 3 layers of 10 mm (3/8 inch) heat-strengthened glass.

Figure 6.3: Glass Bridge in Rotterdam ((Schittich 1999, p. 281) 122

Based on the information provided above, a report is generated by the tool and listed below. Design depth from the tool is 12 inch which agrees well with the as built design (11.81 inches).

Thickness of Local Cross Glass Sheets StressDeflection Deflection Bucklin Bucklin Depth Section (inch) Strength (<L/360) (<5/12") g g (inch) (inch2) 3/8 12 6 6 0 2 12 13 1/2

Table 6.3: Beam for Glass Bridge in Rotterdam by the Excel Tool

6.2.4. Glass Conservatory, Teesdale, Surrey Philip Wilson and Gennady Wasilchenko-Malishev of Malishev Wilson Engineers, UK, were involved in two projects with external glass frames and published a paper about those two designs on Glass Processing Day 2005, Finland. Glass Conservatory, Teesdale, Surrey is one of those two projects. This huge glass box is 7.6 meter (24.93 feet) long, 5.5 meter (18.04 feet) wide and 2.6 meter (8.53 feet) high. The roof structure is supported by two glass beams with depths of 50 cm (19.69 inches) as shown below. Spacing between beams is estimated to be 24.93/3=8.31 feet. The overall length of beams is described as 6.9 meter (22.64 feet) and calculations of the span of those beams is estimated to be 22.64-1.64=21 feet. The glass beams are constructed with 3 layers of 1/2

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inch tempered glass (Philip, 2005). Loading on the structure will use default values of the tool.

Figure 6.4: Glass Conservatory, Teesdale, Surrey (Wilson 2005, p. 2)

Based on the information provided above, a report is generated by the tool and listed below. Design depth from the tool is 18 inches which agrees well with the as built design (19.69 inches).
Thickness of Local Dept Cross Glass Sheets StressDeflection Deflection Bucklin Bucklin h Section (inch) Strength (<L/360) (<5/12") g g (inch) (inch2) 1/2 18 8 8 0 4 18 27

Table 6.4: Beam for Glass Conservatory, Teesdale, by the Excel Tool

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6.3. Conclusion
As shown above, the tool perfectly predicts the as built value for design case 2, Glass Pavilion of Broadfield House Glass Museum, and 3, Glass Bridge is Rotterdam. The Excel tool underestimates the design by 2 inches in case 4, Glass Conservatory, but the error is only 10% of the as built design. Design case 1, Workshop in Muse de Louvre, is a little bit complicate. It predicts a value below both as built one and tested value.

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CHAPTER 7 FUTURE WORK

Structural use of glass is still quite new and more studies are needed. Although this thesis is based on the study of tests, codes and empirical data, most of these resources are not from studies on glass beams, but rather from glass panels and need to be further verified. The verification needs to test many samples. There are several topics closely related to glass beam design that need to be studied with priority to advance the understanding of their behavior.

7.1. Strength of Glass under Long-duration Load

The most significant difference between structural glass and traditional glass panels is that structural glass has to sustain long-duration load. Strength of glass will drop if panels are loaded with long term load and the reduced strength cannot be tested in the short term. Most tests and theories about strength of glass under long-duration load are based on the study of annealed glass. However, annealed glass should not be used as structural glass beams, and future work on heat-strengthened glass and tempered glass are needed. Although proposed strengths are given in this thesis based on theory, this strength needs to be further studied and verified by tests.

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7.2. Lamination
Most resources and calculation method in this thesis are based on the study of monolithic glass because the information is easy to get and reliable. Although scholars have been studying structural properties of laminated glass for a long time, most of this research is about glass panels under out of plane load and this information is not directly applicable to glass beams. Definitely, lamination and interlayer materials have a stronger effect on laminated glass panels under out of plane load than those under in plane load. They still will change structural properties and structural behavior of glass and detailed study and tests are needed in this area.

7.3. Buckling
Because of the extraordinary slenderness of glass beam cross sections, buckling is more likely to happen on them than on other types of beams. As discussed in chapters 4 and 5, stronger and stiffer interlayer materials could greatly improve buckling behaviors of glass beams. This thesis proposed the assumption that different layers will not slide relative to each other in this simplified calculation, but this assumption may be un-conservative. It would also be too conservative to assume the layers would slide freely. A balance between these two conditions is needed.

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7.4. Connection Design

Connection design is another crucial criterion for glass beam design but it is not covered in this thesis. Because glass beams will be punctured or attached to other materials, most of the time steel, stress will concentrate on those areas and can cause structural failure. Detailed connection study and design instruction are needed to see if load capacities of beams are governed by the connection instead of beam bending or buckling.

7.5. Environmental Impact and Protection

Glass is more sensitive to several environmental impacts than other structural materials. Thermal effects, moisture and other types of environmental attack will reduce the strength of glass or accelerate the rate of glass strength reduction. Figure 7.1 shows resistance of glass to attack by six common environments. Glass beams need to be designed more conservative if they are exposed to those environments.

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Figure 7.1: Comparative Ranking of Resistance to Attack by Six Common Environments (Institution of Structural Engineer 1999, p. 20)

PVB and other types of interlayer materials are very sensitive to environmental impacts too, especially to UV light, and need special design when beams are exposed outside.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) 2004, ASTM Standards in Building Codes: Specification, Test Methods, Practices, Classifications, Terminology, 41st edition, ASTM International, PA Apple Inc. 2010, Apple Store, Fifth Avenue Gallery, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://www.apple.com/retail/fifthavenue/gallery/index.html > Belis, J, Impe, RV, Buffel, P, Vanlaere, W & Savineau, G 2003, Monolithic Calculation Model for the Out of Plan Bending of Laminated Glass Beams, Glass Processing Day 2003, Finland, <http://www.glassfiles.com/library/article.php?id=763&search=Monolithic+Calculation+ Model+for+the+Out+of+Plan+Bending+of+Laminated+Glass+Beams&page=1> Bos, F, Veer,F, Hobbelman, G, Louter, C, Nieuwenhuijzen, EV, Romein, T, Nijsse, R & Belis, J 2005, Designing and Planning the Worlds Biggest Experimental Glass Structure, Glass Performance Day 2005, Finland, <http://www.glassfiles.com/library/article.php?id=933&search=designing+and+planning +the+world's+biggest+&page=1 > Button, David & Brain, Pye 1993, Glass in Building: a Guide to Modern Architectural Glass Performance, Butterworth Architecture, UK Callaghan, J.O. & Coult, G 2007, An All Glass Cube in New York City, Glass Performance Days 2007, Tampere, Jun 15-18 2007, <http://www.glassfiles.com/library/article.php?id=1178&search=An+all+glass+cube+in+ New+York+City&page=1> Compagno, Andrea 2002, Intelligente Glasfassaden/ Intelligent Glass Facades: Material, Anwendung, Gestaltung / Material, Practice, Design (German and English Edition), 5th edition, Birkhuser-Verlag, Switzerland Crompton, Peter Robert 1999, Assessment of Design Procedures for Structural Glass Beams, Master thesis, Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK Firman Glass, Glass as a Skin and Structure, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://www.firmanglass.com/skin.html > 130

G.G. Schierle, 2008, Structure and Design, University Readers, US Institution of Structural Engineer, 1999, Structural use of Glass in Building, SETO, 1st edition, UK Lamont, Susan 2001, The Behavior of Multi-storey Composite Steel Framed Structures in Response to Compartment Fires, Doctoral Thesis online, University of Edinburgh, UK <http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/SLamont.htm> NGNA (Glass Association of North America) 2008, GANA Glazing Manual: 50th Anniversary Edition, GANA, US Rafael Vinoly Architect, Tokyo International Forum, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://www.rvapc.com/> Richard, Brent 2006, New Glass Architecture, Yale University Press, North America Schittich, C, Staib, G, Balkow, D, Schuler, M & Sobek, W 1999, Glass Construction Manual, Birkhuser-Verlag, Switzerland Seele, Apple High Profile Store-Fifth Avenue, New York City, USA, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://www.seele.com/index.php?page=179&modaction=detail&modid=99 > Trahair, NS 2009, One hundred Years of Structural Testing, digital image, The University of Sydney, Civil Engineering Graduates Association, Australia <http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/civil/about/history_department_trahair.shtml> Veer, FA, Louter, PC, Bos, FP, Romein, T, Ginkel, HV & Riemslag, AC, 2008, The Strength of Architectural Glass, Challenging Glass 2008, Finland <http://www.glassfiles.com/library/article.php?id=1336&search=The+strength+of+archit ectural+glass&page=2> Wikipedia 2010, History of Glass, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_history> Wikipedia 2009, Case Study House No. 21. JPG, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Case_Study_House_No._21.JPG>

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Wikipedia 2009, File: Richard J. Klarchek Information Commons. JPG, viewed 9 June 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_J._Klarchek_Information_Commons.JPG> Wilson, Philip & Vasilchenko-Malishev, Gennady 2005, Construction of All-glass Structures with External Glass Frames, Glass Processing Day 2005, Finland, <http://www.glassfiles.com/library/article.php?id=936&search=Construction+of+Allglass+Structures+with+External+Glass+Frames&page=1> Wurm, Jan 2007, Glass Structures: Design and Construction of Self-supporting Skins, 2007, Birkhuser-Verlag, Switzerland

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APPENDIX A

Table A.1: Draft Used in this Thesis for Design Decisions & Structure Criteria 133

Table A.1: Continued

134

APPENDIX B
AG: Annealed glass HG: Heat-strengthened glass TG: Tempered glass Red Color: Required glass beam depth is greater than 50 in and cannot be calculated by this tool Brown Color: Calculated depth is greater than 1/10 span of the beam Blue Color: Calculated depth is less than 1/20 span of the beam Default Spacing of beams: 3 ft for beams spanning 8 ft, 9 ft, 10 ft, 11 ft 4 ft for beams spanning 12 ft, 13 ft, 14 ft, 15 ft 5 ft for beams spanning 16 ft, 17 ft, 18 ft, 19 ft, 20 ft All beams listed in Appendix B are beams for roof construction.

135

Table B.1: 8 Foot Glass Beams

136

Table B.2: 9 Foot Glass Beams

137

Table B.3: 10 Foot Glass Beams

138

Table B.4: 11 Foot Glass Beams

139

Table B.5: 12 Foot Glass Beams

140

Table B.6: 13 Foot Glass Beams

141

Table B.7: 14 Foot Glass Beams

142

Table B.8: 15 Foot Glass Beams

143

Table B.9: 16 Foot Glass Beams

144

Table B.10: 17 Foot Glass Beams

145

Table B.11: 18 Foot Glass Beams

146

Table B.12: 19 Foot Glass Beams

147

Table B.13: 20 Foot Glass Beams

148