High strength and high stiffness glass-GFRP sandwiches: Towards next generation of glass structures

Abstract

Glass is an attractive building material with its physical-chemical properties. With recent advancements in glass products, the construction of well-lit and spacious glass buildings has become more prevalent. However, contemporary glass structures have weaknesses, such as brittle material behaviour, low tensile strength, and low strength/weight ratio. While contemporary glass structures have weaknesses, glass fibres offer specific mechanical properties over traditional construction materials, including a high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness. To address these issues, glass is often combined with reinforcing materials like Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) to increase the post-cracking resistance and gradual failure of glass in civil engineering applications.

This research presents the experimental proof of concept investigation taken to investigate a novel Glass-Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) sandwich with higher load capacity, flexural stiffness and safe, gradual failure behaviour compared to monolithic glass and annealed laminated glass. The novel Glass–GFRP structural sandwich specimens were fabricated by combining two glass skins (top and bottom glass sheets) with a three-dimensional (3D) GFRP core by using one process Vacuum Infusion Process (VIP) method with satisfactory optical transmittance and mechanical properties. The result showed that the low-viscosity acrylic resin can be infused to fabricate lightweight and translucent Glass-GFRP sandwich to connect the core with the relatively thin two-glass sheets. A suitable VIP methodology has been developed, and the optical and mechanical properties of the new sandwich were validated. It is shown that by the appropriate combination of atmospheric conditions (temperature and humidity), acrylic resin ratio, and infusion pressure within a closed-mould VIP method, a practically useful Glass-GFRP sandwich can be fabricated. Therefore, the fabrication must be done in suitable conditions.

Two experimental investigation types were carried out to justify the practical viability of the new Glass-GFRP sandwich: light transmittance and mechanical tests. The mechanical test results of the Glass-GFRP sandwich demonstrated significantly higher flexural stiffness, load capacity (over 70% and 50% higher), and post-cracked load resistance without significantly increasing weight compared to equivalent monolithic glass and annealed laminated glass specimens. Moreover, the light transmittance properties of the Glass-GFRP sandwich composites reveal their suitability for partially transparent applications, with transmittance values above 40% and 75% in the vertical and horizontal directions, respectively.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Feyza Nur Yildirim: orcid.org/0000-0002-9723-5740

ORCID for Joel Smethurst: orcid.org/0000-0001-8175-985X

ORCID for Nong Gao: orcid.org/0000-0002-7430-0319

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