Comparison of Mechanical and Adhesive Joints for Structural Glass – A review

The presented paper compares types of connections mostly used for glass structures. Two groups are recognised and it is mechanical connections and adhesive joints. Bolted connections are mostly used as it is relatively simply to design and to provide, but to be able to create such a connections holes needs to be drilled in glass panes, which leads to discontinuities in geometry, weakening the glass panes and to creation of local stress peaks in the area where the bolt is inserted. On the other hand, adhesive joints don't lead to peak stresses as the stress is redistributed along larger area. Huge variety of accessible adhesives enable the joints to be used in almost each conditions. Main disadvantage of adhesives the change in behaviour over time, manly decrease in strength. Also, mechanical properties are influenced by UV radiation, humidity, temperature, etc. The most common adhesives used for structural glass and their performance is shown and discussed in the paper.