Luigi Malomo, ISTI-CNR
Maurizio Froli, DESTEC-University of Pisa
Paolo Cignoni, ISTI-CNR
Shells made of structural glass are beautiful objects from both the aesthetics and the engineering point of view. However, they pose two significant challenges. The first one is to assure adequate safety and redundancy concerning possible global collapse. Being single-layered, in a shell made of structural glass, the brittle cracking of a single pane can lead to a sudden propagation of failure, up to instability.
The second one is to guarantee cheap replacing possibilities for potentially collapsed components. This research explores a novel concept to address both requirements, where glass is both post-tensioned and reinforced and develops the research on TVT post-tensioned glass beams.