Comportamento meccanico di lastre di vetro strutturale

The results of an experimental analysis carried out on structural glass units subjected to out of plane loads are presented. Several monolithic and laminated glass plates and beams have been subjected to four point bending test in order to determine strength, deflection and time dependent behavior. Laminated glass units were made of two glass sheets and polymer interlayer; the traditional PVB interlayer was compared with an innovative one, recently marketed. The experimental results were compared with those obtained by an analytical model of composite beam proposed by Hooper (1973) and with a FEM analysis that can take into account the viscoelastic behavior of the interlayer. The improvement of the numerical procedure permits to reproduce a variety of boundary conditions, loads and constraints, and to investigate the effective collapse behavior.