Date: June 2020
Type: MSc
Student(s): Frederik Christensen
Supervisor(s): Jens H. Nielsen
Brian Nyvang Legarth
Others:
Report:
The use of glass in structural engineering has increased in recent time, therefore a knowledge of its characteristics is of interest to obtain the best engineering results.
To increase the strength of a glass structure, the best solution appears to be the use of laminated tempered glass. Due to the characteristics of tempered glass, the failure of one panel in this situation could cause a cascading effect that will affect the whole structure.
Since this appears to be a solution that will be used increasingly in the future to guarantee higher strength in the glass structure, it is of interest to develop a system to determine the effects due to the breakage of a panel.
To do so, an analysis was performed to determine the characteristics of broken tempered glass with the use of an analytical model, with a particular focus on the stiffness.
Having obtained these results, it is possible to run a Finite Element (FE) simulation of these glass fragments to compare the results.
These simulations will become closer to the real case when moving from a 2D to a 3D model.
Once the characteristics have been determined under different conditions and knowing how the different parameters have an influence, it was possible to move into the analysis of the behavior of a failed glass panel.
A practical example was then analytically analyzed with these new tools in order to show a possible procedure to determine whether or not a cascade effect is expected to happen