Abstract:

In recent years , overlap-connected glass curtain walls have been widely used in the field of modem architecture, but the corresponding theoretical researches lag behind the engineering application. In order to solve this problem , the mechanical behavior and the corresponding mechanism , as well as the stress and displacement distributions of glass panels restrained by different types of overlapped connectors under in-plane shear were investigated by experimental tests and finite element method (FEM). Furthermore , the validity of FEM is experimentally verified. It is concluded that the displacement and stress of the glass panel linearly increase with the shear load in the loading process , and that the panel exhibits significant characteristic of brittle failure. Moreover , the stress mechanism of in-plane shearing is different from that of out-of-plane bending , the former being the compressive failure in contact boundary while the latter being the tensile failure in the joint region.

Key words: overlap-connected glass panel, bearing capability, stress mechanism, experimental investigation, finiteelement method