The effect of glass stiffeners in increasing the bearing capacity of triangular section glass beams

Abstract

The use of structural glass elements has increased steadily in the past few years. New innovations in glass manufacturing have developed the material to withstand increased human impact, climatic conditions, chemical attacks and provide better visual performance. This increased versatility enables glass to become the material of the future. Glass is, however, liable to brittle failure due to the chemical composition that results during manufacture. This work emerged as a response to the dissertation 'The Behaviour of Hollow Triangular-Section Glass Beams' by Torpiano (2009). He examined the structural behaviour of two-metre long triangular section beams when subjected to a four-point bending test. The tests revealed that further investigation into the associated failure mode was necessary. The goal of this study is to investigate the support bearing capacity of stiffened and unstiffened end supports of a triangular glass beam. This involved building smaller prototypes and subjecting them to compressive loading. The support system used for the triangular sections enabled support conditions to be varied and an investigation of the effect these would have on ultimate failure was carried out. In order to increase the bearing capacity of the system, glass stiffeners were proposed. These were fitted in the hollow section and the effect provided studied. Beams with different stiffener variations were tested and the best conditions were proposed as the ideal conditions to be used. The results obtained should provide a framework for future experiments on triangular glass beams.