Adventures with Structural Glass

James OCallaghan BEng (Hons) CEng MIStructE MHKIE Eckersley OCallaghan Structural Design Keywords 1 = Lamination, 2 = Tempering, 3 = Structural Glass

Abstract
Designing structures in glass requires a sound knowledge of structural behaviour as well as sensitivity toward the way in which glass behaves when subject to forces. Its characteristics are unique therefore signicantly inuencing the way in which design should be approached. From its well-documented brittle mechanical behaviour to the effect of local stresses needs to be considered with appropriate layers of redundancy built into the structural design. The author uses this paper to highlight his experiences in the developments of glass design techniques, mechanics and fabrication. These are demonstrated via a number of exampled glass structures around the world. Keywords: Structures, Connections, Lamination, Tempering, Curving

Introduction
This paper aims to highlight structural glass design innovations we have contributed to over the last ten years through a series of specic examples coupled with projects where these innovations have been successfully employed. These innovations have been led by a design need, developed through design considerations, testing, and realised through fabrication technique advancements. We aim to describe not only how these design challenges were solved but also how the advancements in fabrication were surmounted. These innovations have both lead to greater opportunities in glass design and generally broadened the horizon of how glass can be utilised. It is hoped that these opportunities become clear through the contents of this paper.

Glass Connection Development

The concept of using glass to create structures has a number of limiting parameters. In the rst instance is the size of the glass and form into which a structure might be conceived. These two, perhaps obvious, limitations mean that at some point where size and form

move beyond these limiting parameters glass elements require connecting to form a structure. Connecting glass elements together has historically been achieved with adhesives, such as silicone, or connectors, such as bolts through holes in the glass. Early in 2001 shortly after the introduction of a new interlayer by Dupont (now known as SentryGlasR) and through discussions with Dr. Stephen Bennison it was soon appreciated that the properties of this new interlayer may prove very useful in structural glass applications. Of particular interest was the signicantly enhanced shear strength versus PVBR (Poly Vinyl Butyl) and the reported superior ow characteristics during the lamination process. The interlayer had been developed with the hurricane glazing market in mind and the potential for use in structures was frankly a co-incidental discovery through the experimentations subsequently carried out. With these structural advantages in mind the concept of laminating a metallic insert within a number of layers was developed. The idea being that by encasing a material that could be connected into within the body of the glass element it would be possible to eliminate the need for a hole to be drilled through the glass to make a connection thus stripping away a layer of ttings. Loading glass through holes is also often the source of overstress so reducing the number of opportunities for this to happen in a glass structure is advantageous. This idea of simplifying the overall aesthetic of the connection and getting closer to the zenith of a pure glass to glass connection was very appealing to us. Initial testing took place at the University of Munich with the assistance and collaboration of Seele GmbH, who also began to see how this new interlayer material could be useful in bonding metal to glass. The initial tests on a series of differing metallic shapes within the body of a three ply annealed glass laminate clearly demonstrated the potential of the interlayer structurally. The initial test of a 50mm dia semidisk (puck) within the middle layer of glass yielded pull out forces in excess of 50kN prior to failure. In fact it can

Design and Glass in Architecture James OCallaghan

be seen from the image (Fig 1) that glass failure occurred prior to signicant failure of the interlayers shear bond to the glass. This was a remarkable insight and the beginning of a new approach to glass connectivity. From this point understanding how to perfect the lamination of the metal within the glass was not without its challenges. Temperature plays a key role in the success of this due to the differing thermal co-efcient of the glass and metallic materials. The early experiments and examples used titanium as the metallic insert due to the similar thermal properties to that of glass, thus limiting wildly different expansions within the autoclave that generally led to cracking.

Figure 1: Pull Testing of Inserts

A second, but fundamental, biproduct of this new interlayer was the potential to rewrite the rulebook on post failure performance. Glass is known to be a brittle material and as such there are no visible signs of distress prior to its failure. This characteristic is an important one when considering structural glass and the performance of a structural element upon failure and therefore is a cornerstone of glass design and in most cases the starting point. We assume glass will fail in service and therefore need to ensure that any design accommodates alternative load paths in the event of failure, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the function and importance of the member being considered. Our work on staircases led us quickly to see the advantages of the new interlayer in being able to demonstrate full load capacity of a glass tread or oor plate even when multiple

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layers of glass have failed (Fig 2). This demonstration of redundancy under extreme circumstances meant that the concept of a glass tread could be more widely accepted as a safe and pragmatic solution for glass stairs and oors. Our early use of this for a project in New York for Apple Inc (Fig 3) is a good illustration of where a simple glass tread needs to withstand the loads and trafc of many thousands of people a year and yet provide an organization as large and as public as Apple with the security that it is t for purpose.

variations has not been fully validated. It is the writers belief that the approach has a far greater potential as a means of connecting glass to glass under long term loads. We aim to continue to exploit the concept and extend its use in to connections carrying long term loads, such as glass beam to glass beam splices or again with a view to stripping away a layer of connections at the glass surface.

Advancements in Design Tools and Techniques

The advancement in the use of glass structurally, particularly in the ambitious way in which is now frequently used, is certainly a function of the tools that have similarly developed to enable its analysis. To have condence in how glass behaves when loaded structurally, it is essential to understand how local stresses accumulate. Glass is a purely elastic material and this combined with its total transparency means that stress or yielding of the material is invisible to the naked eye. Failure of the material is abrupt with no obvious visual warnings whereby remedial measures can be taken. This characteristic means that predicting its behaviour under loads locally is a fundamental of glass design. The nite element analysis approach has allowed this to happen and the development of software and hardware that facilitates this analysis has played an essential role in more accurately and rapidly predicting glass behaviour under load. This ability to map stresses and analyse in a matter of hours versus a matter of days has enabled the designer to develop larger more ambitious structures with a level of condence that was previously based on little more than elementary calculations and rules of thumb. It is also very important to note that experience of the material and its failure characteristics are essential to combine with this analytical approach in order to fully validate a design. The analysis models we develop are a vital part of the process in design, however their accuracy has been honed over the last few years with a much better understanding of how the elements of the model behave. It has been found that a thorough understanding of glass is one thing, but the understanding of other key materials such as interlayers, epoxies, silicone, PMMA etc are equally important to model correctly. Beyond this the actual stiffness of a certain types of connection may need calibration to ensure that the global stiffness and frequency of the structural model has some relevance to the structure being conceived. Again experience plays a big part in this and an engineers natural instinct needs to be considered in the process.

The projects we have worked on have taken us to many parts of the world and in doing so many codes have been needed to be considered and adopted. The use of glass structurally is not well dened by codes globally and this has both advantages and disadvantages to the designer and should probably be the subject of another paper. However, in order to justify designs it is necessary to have a clear and pragmatic approach which, in geographical locations where codes are not detailed, involves proposing parts of developed codes along with testing data. Occasionally the authorities request specic testing for the projects being considered but currently this tends to be only a justication of the design approach.

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Lamination Developments
The adoption of SentryGlas interlayer by laminators around the world has been a sedate process that has had its limitations. It is fair to say that today it is relatively commonly accepted and therefore SG laminated glass is widely available. This has been a paradigm shift for the use of glass structurally for the reasons explained earlier in this paper. Traditionally lamination has been a process to enable multiple layers of glass to be bonded together typically to achieve thickness beyond the elemental thickness of glass sheets when needed structurally, to provide redundancy and therefore safety and to allow materials or translucency within the body of the glass panel. Through our studies and experience with inserts we became interested in how the interlayer could be used to extend the size of the glass used. In working with Seele GmbH on the Fifth Avenue Cube in 2004 (Fig 4) a concept was developed for the creation of glass ns that were greater in length than the stock sheets of glass. The idea of splicing a number of 6m sheets of glass together in a ve ply laminate to achieve an overall length of 10m was devised. Another challenge at the time was nding an autoclave large enough to laminate the glass. Bischoff Glass Technologies who were contracted to make the glass ns managed to nd an aircraft wing manufacturer who was prepared to lend the use of its large autoclave to carry out these experiments and subsequent fabrication. The project was a success and the concept proved, Seele GmbH saw the potential in this approach and type of glass fabrication, thus forming Sedak GmbH who subsequently invested in an autoclave of 15m in length. The new Sedak facility meant that we were able to consider even larger panels of glass for a number of projects for Apple. Perhaps the most notable

Figure 2: Total redundancy with SG interlayer

Figure 3: SoHo Apple Store staircase

The concept of insert lamination was extended over time and utilised within our designs to benet a number of more complex glass connections. For the glass cube on Fifth Avenue, New York, the idea of laminating a metal sleeve within the central layer of glass meant the connecting plate between the n and faade did not need to be surface mounted and resulted in a clean connection. To date our use of the laminated insert as a form of connection has been limited to situations where only short term load is transferred. The performance of the approach over time and when subject to large temperature

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Design and Glass in Architecture James OCallaghan

Figure 4: Apple Glass Cube 5th Avenue, New York (Photo: Roy Zipstein)

are the facades for stores in Boston and Sydney (Fig 5 an 6). The faade panels for the Sydney store are 14m tall x 3m wide and constitute the largest monolithic laminated tempered glass panels in the world to date. The panels are formed with 10mm thick tempered glass splice laminated from 8m long tempered sheets in the same manner devised for the New York project. Many additional considerations were necessary when considering these panels as viable, including transportation and construction methods. All challenging, but achievable meaning that for future projects these issues have been surmounted.

Tempering and Curving Advancements

Once the concept of using large scale monolithic laminated panels had been established and experienced through

the fabrication and construction of the glass in Sydney, other possibilities and challenges emerged that related to large scale glass panels. It was felt that the next step to improve the larger panels was to investigate how splice lamination could be avoided by using layers of glass equal to that of the overall panel. To do this a number of things needed to be established. Firstly, who could provide raw stock sheets at 12m? Then, who would then be able to cut, temper and laminate them? A new project in Shanghai came to light that called for the design of a glass cylinder of approximately 13m in height. A limited amount of research concluded that at that point there were no tempering facilities capable of processing glass greater than about 9m in length and certainly no facility that could both temper and curve panels of the sizes required. Through meeting with several fabricators in China it was soon found

that the attitude, focus and interest of Beijing North Glass (BNG) was appropriate to begin a development programme for the production of glass to parameters never yet considered in the industry. BNGs parent company in Shanghai is the largest manufacturer of tempering equipment in China and they were equally excited about the opportunity to produce some equipment that would facilitate a paradigm shift in glass fabrication. Before long new equipment was designed and a new approach to tempering and curving glass developed. During the period in which the equipment was fabricated we spent time with BNG developing the quality of their fabrication facilities and techniques. Many samples were made and experiments carried out to improve edge lamination, SG lamination, insert lamination and general nish quality. The challenge was immense given the level of quality at which the producer began relative to where we were trying to guide it. Operational tempering and curving equipment was on line by end of 2009 with a commissioning period of two to three months enabling glass to be produced for the Shanghai project in spring of 2010. (Fig 7)

Figure 7: 14m Tempering Furnace

Figure 5: Apple Boston large panel facade

Figure 6: Apple Sydney large panel facade

Interesting issues associated with the fabrication of such large panels require more attention than is typically considered such as shrinkage. It was found that the larger panels would shrink up to 10mm in the process of tempering. This resulted in a need for the initial cutting of the panels and holes to be adjusted to accommodate this shrinkage meaning tolerances in the overall size and hole location remained within specication. Moving such large panels around the fabrication facility needed an entirely new approach. New equipment needed to be designed to securely lift the panels in a manner that support was evenly distributed over the area of the glass to avoid local bending forces cracking the glass prior to tempering. Accuracy of the nal curved glass was dialed in to within 2mm on all tolerance

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reduced from 90 in the rst instance to only 18 in the latest version. Notably the number of required ttings dropped by a similar percentage meaning they became signicantly less noticeable in the new design. The other signicant development was the tting itself. The fabrication technique of laminating the metal within the glass as described earlier in this paper was extended to the connection of the faade panels to the cube structure. Within each of the faade panels six inserts were laminated, three each side, which could be used

Design and Glass in Architecture James OCallaghan

Figure 8: Apple Shanghai Glass Drum (Photo: Roy Zipstein)

dimensions, which for a panel of over 13m is extremely accurate. The resulting 12.6m tall x 2.6m wide tempered, curved and laminated (SG) (2x15mm) panels created the envelope of the new Shanghai Apple store entrance enclosure (Fig 8). The exterior panels are stiffened by a series of vertical monolithic laminated glass ns with an arrangement of glass cantilevers forming the circular roof. The structure was all designed to Chinese codes and erected using local materials and labor, under the expert guidance of Seele GmbH.

Glass Cube Version 2.0

Recently we have been involved in a unique design and construction opportunity in the replacement of the iconic Apple store glass cube on 5th Avenue, New York. It was in late 2010 that consideration was given by Apple, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects and ourselves as to the potential to simplify and increase the transparency of the existing glass cube. The glass fabrication and connection technology developed over the last ve years has been signicant and has been largely sponsored by the projects Apple have commissioned in their retail environments. It was universally agreed that it would be appropriate to collect this technology together and demonstrate it through the reconstruction of its most iconic location on 5ht Avenue. The original concept of the glass cube was to create a transparent entry to a subterranean retail store. The transparency of glass structures is largely dependent on reducing the necessary connection hardware to a

minimum, which in turn is dependent on minimizing the panels of glass and hence joints to connect. Our work with Apple and Seele over the last ve years has been to maximize the glass panel sizes and minimize the aesthetic intervention of the connection ttings. This opportunity to rebuild the glass cube embracing these advances in fabrication and design was a fantastic opportunity to clearly illustrate the potential for increased transparency in glass structures. Specically with the design of the new cube it was possible to signicantly reduce the number of panels required to create the structure as a result of the ability to temper and laminate much large panels of glass. This enabled the number of panels in the cube to be

Figure 9: Cube 2006

Figure 10: Cube 2011

Figure 11: New Cube for 5th Avenue Apple Store - rebuilt in 2011 (Photo: Roy Zipstein)

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as the primary connection between the panels and the ns. The ns also have a laminated insert at the junction where the panels and the ns are connected. The result of this is that all the ttings are laminated within the glass with no metal exposed at the surface of the glass. This enhances the lack of visibility of the ttings and adds to the pure glazed surfaces of the faces of the cube. The resultant cube was rebuilt and opened in 2011, ve years after the rst. A direct manifestation of how structural glass design and fabrication as evolved over the last ve years.

Future Aspirations
Design and Glass in Architecture James OCallaghan Our interest lies in continuing to push the often accepted boundaries of glass

design and fabrication. Challenging the industry to invest in research and development, in new equipment and to learn new techniques is important to move beyond the relatively limited product ranges that have historically existed. The oat line process is now technology over fty years old and sometimes it seems the fabrication industry has moved on little since. This seems painfully inconsistent with the tremendous advances in technology we have experienced in other industrial elds in the same time frame. Design and fabrication capabilities are intrinsically linked. For signicant progress to happen the industry needs to work more closely with those in the design eld and partner in studies to make the seemingly inconceivable conceivable. This requires innovation

from both skill sets to be brought to bear in the collaborative together with a large dose of optimism to make it happen. There will always be nancial equations and considerations to take in to account, but these should not be the initial hurdle that prevents innovation from prospering.

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