Mechanical behaviour of connections for cold-formed steel-glass shear wall panels: Fid-Bau Portal

Mechanical behaviour of connections for cold-formed steel-glass shear wall panels

Van Lancker, Bert / De Corte, Wouter / Belis, Jan

Abstract The development of a bonded glass-steel element that is capable to i) transfer out-of-plane loads due to wind loads in transverse direction, ii) in-plane shear loads, due to wind in longitudinal direction and iii) in-plane compression due to self-weight implies that the structural continuous adhesive glass-metal connection becomes an integral part of the entire bonded glass-steel unit. The frame members are restrained by the joint-glass system due to the glass bonded to the steel frame. To assess the capability of continuous adhesive glass-steel connections to transfer the abovementioned loads, research is indispensable. The available knowledge on the capacity of glass panes used as structural bracing element in steel frames is limited. This paper reports about the structural performance of welded steel corners, both not bonded and bonded with glass panes, to assess the in-plane load-bearing capacity of these connections. In a first experimental phase tests on welded steel corners with different configurations are conducted, whilst during the second phase specimens bonded with glass panes on both sides are tested. Numerical models are developed and validated based on the experimental results, which are then used for parametric studies. As such, the rotational stiffness of semi-rigid welded steel corner configurations and the additional stiffness obtained by bonded glass panes can be determined. The results demonstrated that the specimens with adhesively bonded glass panes on both sides using the structural silicones Sikasil® SG-500 and DowSil™ 993, and the hybrid polymer adhesive Soudaseal 2 K, significantly increased the initial rotational stiffness of the welded steel corners. Specimens bonded with the hybrid polymer adhesive behave significantly stiffer than specimens bonded with the structural silicones. Parametric studies on validated finite element models reveal that the effect of the glass thickness is important for low values of the adhesive thickness. The width-to-thickness ratio of the adhesive layer largely influences the value of the rotational stiffness of the connection. The generated data by the numerical models can now be implemented in analytical models for the calculation of steel structures with semi-rigid joints.

Highlights • Continuous adhesive glass-metal connections using three adhesives are investigated. • The rotational in-plane stiffness is experimentally determined for (un)bonded specimens. • Analytical analyses allowed the validation of the experimental results. • Finite element models were validated and used for parametric studies. • The results can be used for the calculation of (bonded) steel structures with semi-rigid joints.