Christian Louter

Edge-Strengthening of Structural Glass with Protective Coatings

In modern buildings, glass is increasingly used as a load-carrying material in structural components, such as glass beams. For glass beams especially the edge strength of glass is important. However, the strength of glass is not a material constant but depends on various parameters, which makes glass, amongst other things, a challenging building material. One of the parameters influencing glass strength is the combination of humidity and stress, which may cause stress corrosion. The aim of the current study is to limit the effect of humidity at the glass edge. This is done by the application of a protective coating. In this exploratory study several coating solutions are tested applying the coating at the edge of glass specimens. These specimens are then subjected to in-plane four-point bending tests to determine their failure strength. The effects of the coatings on the edge strength are analyzed using the failure strength data from the bending tests. The results indicate that only one of the tested coatings has an effect on the glass edge strength.

Application of Hybrid Glass-Timber Elements in Architecture

The following paper explores the application of hybrid timber-glass elements on semi-continuous architectural structures. The use of glass as a structural material opens multiple fields of investigations. Beyond structural matters and safety issues, architectural questions as functionality and spatiality are briefly addressed, since they are paired with the structural layout. Furthermore, the potential of a glass plate system of overlaying, but yet discontinuous glass elements is addressed in more depth. Geometrical specifications on the structural glass application are elaborated on and generalized into a card house algorithmic discretization model. Through the design and fabrication of a case study, the parallel use and digital simulation and empirical physical testing are discussed. A further potential use in the construction industry of the system is debated.