Structural Glass in High-Rise Buildings

Great developments in glass technology have promoted glass from a building skin material to a structural element οf single-storey buildings. The subject of this project is the integration of a glass structure into the main load bearing system of a high-rise building with the following configuration: • a concrete structure, 60 meters high • a glass structure, 10 meters high, upon the concrete structure • a steel/composite structure, at least 30 meters high, on top of the glass structure Therefore, the task was to design a glass structure that is able to withstand high stresses mainly due to increased gravity and wind loads and the interaction with the other parts of the building. Towards this goal, the shape for the high-rise building was chosen and the geometry of the main structural glass elements was designed. Laminated Heat Strengthened glass walls for maximum transparency and stacked float or cast glass columns bonded with a liquid adhesive interlayer for maximum load bearing capacity, constitute the main load bearing elements. One stacked float glass column consisting of float glass panels and bonded with an adhesive film and one stacked cast column consisting of solid cast glass blocks bonded with an adhesive interlayer, were tested in compression and comparisons were made in terms of stiffness, strength and failure mechanism. Safety concepts were developed that defined the measures which protect the main structural glass elements and ensure the structural integrity of the entire structure. A global model of the entire building was simulated with a FEM software (ANSYS) in linear elastic analysis using linear elements for the columns and 2D shell elements for the walls. Different load combinations and damage scenarios were investigated to obtain maximum principal stresses and deflections. Buckling calculations were conducted for the glass columns and walls by applying established analytical methods. Local models using 3D solid elements were also simulated to de
Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Structural Engineering
Building Technology & Physics