PREPARING A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE MECHANICAL CLASSIFICATION OF STRUCTURAL GLASS

Present study deals with the mesostructure analysis of the structural glass. The subject is about to prepare a comprehensive mechanical analysis, aimed on the understanding of the multiscale mechanical behaviour of soda-lime-silica glass used as an architectural element.After a brief description of the micro and mesostructure of glass we will explain our goals in this analysis.We have divided the glass plate – from a mesoscopic aspect – into three major regions. The first region is the external surface, which is the largest area of a plate. The effect of the surface imperfections is negligible due to a grinded edge finishing, so we considered the second region as the edge. The third region contains the inhomogeneities in the glass material itself. To describe the mesostructure we have done atomic force microscopy (AFM) and micro computed tomography (μCT) scans. We used the AFM to image the surface and the edge and μCT to collect geometrical information from the inhomogeneities. The aim of the overall analysis is to develop a new certification procedure to qualify the structural glass in a mechanical a way.