With a view to practical applications involving large monolithic glass components, a novel structural concept is presented: similar to reinforced concrete, metal reinforcement can be embedded directly in glass during the casting process, resulting in improved residual load-bearing capacity and providing warning of impending failure. Glass casting displays significant potential for realizing complex, large-scale, monolithic structural elements for the built environment. Yet glass's inherent brittleness and lack of post-fracture load-bearing capacity pose critical limitations for their safe application. Conventional safety strategies developed for float glass are challenging to apply to volumetric components, necessitating the development of alternative methods. 

With a view to practical applications involving large monolithic glass components, a novel structural concept is presented: similar to reinforced concrete, metal reinforcement can be embedded directly in glass during the casting process, resulting in improved residual load-bearing capacity and providing warning of impending failure. Reinforced specimens with offset reinforcement exhibited shear dominated failure and improved post fracture behaviour, however, without increasing flexural strength compared to unreinforced specimens. 

Overall, the study shows that embedded offset reinforcement enhances safety and robustness of cast glass elements, providing the foundation for further optimisation of this novel concept to ultimately unlock potential for large scale cast glass applications. 

Relevant publication:  Reinforced Cast Glass: Enhancing Post-Fracture Capacity through Embedded Reinforcement 

Research team:  Menandros Ioannidis, Kyriaki Corinna Datsiou, Faidra Oikonomopoulou, Telesilla Bristogianni

Partners:                                                       Material sponsors: