The Behavior Of The New Glass-steel Structure And The Improved Joints

For centuries architects have been fascinated by transparency in buildings. Recent decades have shown an increase in the use of glass in facades, roofs and other structures. At present, the glass panes are loaded transversely and not in-plane. Unfortunately, the resistance of in-plane loaded glass structures is large with comparatively small deformations (large stiffness). The in-plane loaded glass panes could have great opportunities for the architects and for structural designers to design a more transparent object. Innovative forms of domes and the corresponding joints have to be developed to optimize transparency in this paper.The material properties of glass, as well as the classification of glass structures and the relevant connections are presented in this thesis. Panes are strong in compression but weak in tension. Therefore an innovative form of dome, composed mainly of panes and steel cables, is developed to ensure that no tension occurs in panes. Loads are applied on the dome and the loading behavior of the dome is investigated. Then, several innovative joints are suggested and adopted in the all transparent dome to reduce stress concentration or force concentration when bearing in-plane compression. Several steel blocks are put inside the gum seams of structural silicone sealant between glass panels. Finally, the innovative joints of different shapes and different dimensions are computed by using ADINA FEM programme. After the analysis of the numerical results, several valuable suggestions are proposed for design of the glass structures.