Development of hybrid steel-glass-beams

Development of hybrid steel-glass-beams. Increasing higher requirements for transparent and filigree structures result in continuous development and improvement of load-bearing glass elements, not only in a classic way being a space enclosing element but also increasingly offering load carrying functions. To realize architectural attractive transparent and lightweight constructions bonded hybrid steel-glass beams have been developed, composed of slim steel flanges and glass webs which were assembled to "I"-beams using adhesives. The adhesive system significantly account for the structural behavior of the bonded composite section. Furthermore the joining geometry is of great importance concerning load carrying capacity and producibility but the design is governed by long-term effects like ageing, creeping and time dependent load-carrying behavior. This contribution shows the general systematic approach for the analysis of the load bearing behavior of hybrid steel-glass beams and introduces important criteria and requirements for the design and its mechanical properties focused on an optimized exploitation of the components.