Transparent polymer joints in glass structures

A particularly difficult aspect of glass structures is the joining together of structural members. The various tasks of a joint usually can not be fulfilled by glass alone. Therefore, steel intermediate components are often applied, but since these are opaque, they form an obstacle towards the development of completely transparent structures. Transparent polymers may provide an alternative. There are literally hundreds of transparent polymers available on the market. Their individual material properties vary significantly, but they share an even bigger dissimilarity with the properties of steels. This study therefore continues on previous research to identify suitable transparent polymers. Information has been collected from material data sheets. Furthermore, a number of tensile tests on material specimens as well as specimens with steel bolt inserts, has been performed. Consecutively, a common structural glass joints was analyzed by determining the typical loads acting on it. A rough design for a polymer joint component has been developed and calculated using linear FE modeling. It was shown that in a typical case, transparent polymer intermediate joint components do not have to be unreasonably wieldy to avoid excessive creep and limit deformations and stresses. Impact modified PMMA, PC and PET-G all have their specific advantages and should be considered when searching for transparent polymers for such applications.