EngineeringStructures,Vol.

ELSEVIER

0141-0296(95)00199-9

18, No. 8, pp. 645~52, 1996

Copyright 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0141-0296/96 $15.00 + 0.00

Nonlinear finite element analysis

of glass panels
Andrew Kwok Wai So and Siu L a i Chan
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung
Horn, Kowloon, Hong Kong
(Received August 1993; revised version accepted March 1995)

Glass panels which are widely used in curtain wall systems, behave
nonlinearly under high wind load when their deflections exceed
about 3/4 of their thickness. The American and the Canadian design
codes for curtain wall and window systems have made it mandatory to include the effect of large deflection in the design and analysis of glass panels. This paper presents a versatile finite shell
element method for nonlinear analysis of glass panels subjected
to high wind loads. The accuracy of the proposed method is demonstrated via comparison with the results of previous studies and
experiments. The advantage of the present method is its versatility
in handling complex loading and boundary conditions whilst its
longer computational time has been effectively offset by the adoption of the efficient incremental-iterative minimum residual displacement method of analysis and the availability of fast personal
computers. Using the examples studied in this paper, it was found
that the nonlinearity in glass may violate the linear assumption in
the practical loading range, resulting in unexpected glass behaviour if the linear theory is used. More interestingly, the use of
higher strength glass, the tempered or the heat-strengthened glass,
will not increase the load resistance of the panel when it is under
in-plane loads causing instability. Copyright 1996 Elsevier
Science Ltd.

Keywords:glass panels, wind loads, finite element analysis

1.

it reduces the visibility through the glass: the surface wave

of tempered glass distorts the reflected image and the
reflections multiple surfaces of laminated glass also distort
vision. The major reason for special care in the design of
glass is that it has no ductility to allow a moment or force
redistribution like steel and concrete frames. Further, their
over-design is costly. In Hong Kong, the facade system normally takes 15-20% of the total construction cost in a commercial building.
The curtain wall system is directly under the attack of
strong wind during its normal life. The basic design wind
pressure in Hong Kong can be up to 6 kPa for buildings
with a level higher than 250 m, which is not uncommon,
as many buildings are constructed along the hillside. Under
the strong wind action, glass panels deflect considerably so
that the linear theory does not suffice. In fact, in a number
of full-scale mock-up tests by the second author, nearly
all glass panels deflected by more than several times their
thickness during their strength and performance tests. This
high nonlinearity implies that a nonlinear theory should be
used to predict their structural behaviour.

Introduction

Glass panels are widely used in curtain wall systems to

separate the interior from the exterior of a building. They
have a distinct advantage of providing a clear view of the
outside environment for the occupants. Large glass panels
of size in excess of 1.5 m z are nowadays commonly used
in commercial buildings. In practice, they are structurally
glazed by structural sezlant on the four sides or two sides
with the other two edges clamped along the transoms (see
Figure 1). Aesthetically speaking, their appearance generally is more appealing ~Lhanother finishes.
In spite of the wide use of glass, its behaviour and
properties are not very well known to the engineer when
compared to other materials like steel and concrete. Its
structural importance cannot be overlooked. Its failure will
lead directly to glass debris falling onto the street level and
this is commonly encountered in many buildings. Due to
their brittleness, there is normally no warning of a breakage. Although laminated and tempered glass lowers the
chance of harmful damage, its use may not be preferred as

645

646

Nonlinear finite element analysis of glass panels: A. K. W. So and S. L. Chan

1

v2

Glass

Mullion

I
3

Plead
Spnge"-~ wadga

WeatherinSeal
g ant
Structural

Se~ngBlock~SII

Rod

I Can

Section 1-1

Section 2

A Typical two-sided structural glazing design

We~hering 8eakmt

GIIUll
~,~ ~ : /

WeatheringSeallnt

J.-

1.1. Element formulation and numerical procedure

SttucturldS.lden~t
~=--~

.o IL-JI

iliar with the finite element method which has a stronger

physical perception, the proposed method should be more
readily accepted by the profession.
This paper is addressed to the application of a refined
finite element technique to the geometrically nonlinear
analysis of glass panels. The application of the finite
element method to the nonlinear analysis of glass panels
appears to be limited and the recently developed powerful
numerical techniques have not been fully utilized. The triangular element is selected as a basic element for idealization of the plated structure since its shape can be easily
adapted to various complicated boundary conditions.
Numerical examples on the analysis of the snap-through
behaviour of a shallow shell, the stress distribution of a
tested glass panel and the predicted failure load of a series
of glass plates are given to verify the proposed method.
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the application of this versatile finite element method to the analysis
of glass panels of complex geometry undergoing large
deflections. Most of the finite element procedures used for
the analysis of glass structures are rather obsolete and the
sophisticated and recently developed techniques for the
finite element method have not been used for the analysis
of glass structures. The accuracy of the proposed finite
element method will be compared against a number of
problems for which solutions by other methods or test
results are available. In fact, the nonlinearity of glass panels
in the working load range has provided a very important
chance to apply the nonlinear finite element method to
realistic engineering structures.

GluIplate

Section 2

/U

Section 3

A Typical four-sided structural glazing design

Figure I Typical structural glazed system
There are several methods to tackle the large deflection
problems of plates. Early works in the area include the
finite difference method by Kaiser 1 and Vallabhan and
Wang 2, the closed-form solution by Levy3, the Galerkin
method by Beason 4 and the finite element method by AITayyib5. The close-formed solutions can only be obtained
for some idealized boundary conditions and initial plate
geometry, which may not accurately reflect the actual condition of the glass panels. The Galerkin and the finite difference methods, in general, involve less computational work
than the finite element method but may be limited to standard or simple plate geometry. For glass panels of curved
surface and under complicated boundary conditions such as
the edges not being completely restrained along their sides,
these methods may be too complex. The finite element
method is generally considered to be most versatile in terms
of flexibility. The modification of an existing finite element
program for glass analysis is also believed to be a simpler
task than the coding of a complete finite difference program. Its disadvantage of heavy computational time is
reduced by the powerful incremental iterative nonlinear
numerical methods developed and also the low-priced and
fast microcomputers. Further, as the engineer is more ram-

Whilst the objective of this paper is to demonstrate the

application of the nonlinear finite element method to the
design and analysis of glass panels, the detailed formulation
of the finite element used in the present studies will not be
given. However, a brief description of the method used in
the analysis is necessary in order to provide a reference for
the readers in selecting an element for the analysis of this
type of structures. A complete and detailed discussion on
the element formulation is given in Reference 6.
In general, a thin shell structure has a thickness much
smaller than its lateral dimensions and resists the external
forces by the combined membrane and the bending actions.
To model the behaviour of such a structure, the bending and
the membrane stiffness must be considered in an analysis.
Due to the thinness of glass panels used in practice, the
shear strain energy is minimal and thus the facet element in
conjunction with the Kirchhoff thin shell theory is adopted
herein. To be consistent with the general engineering analysis, each element node is formulated to have six degrees
of freedom which are the three translational and the three
rotational displacements in and about the three mutually
perpendicular axes. The bending and membrane stiffnesses
are uncoupled at element level and each possesses three
degrees of freedom.
The in-plane stiffness of the present element is chosen
from the one by Allman 7. The advantage of using the
element is due to the adoption of the drilling degree of
freedom, with which an additional fictitious degree of freedom to prevent zero in-plane rotational stiffness when all
elements lie on the same plane, is not required. Each inplane stiffness component possesses three degrees of freedom at each node (i.e. the two translations and the one
rotation as shown in Figure 2) and it is formed from a strain

Nonlinear finite element analysis of glass panels: A. K. W. So and S. L. Chan

z

y
/~lobel
X

Axle

3
X

""3

u3

MembraneStiffness
Figure2

2
x

~ ~y3
0

BendingStiffness

Shell element

field which can be assumed to be constant because the

direct strain variation across the elements is not large.
The bending stiffness of the element (see Figure 2) to
be used for glass analysis is based on the assumption of
zero shear strain energy. The Kirchhoff hypothesis is
imposed on the element comers and midside nodes only,
resulting in the so-called discrete Kirchhoff element. The
variation of the transverse displacement, w, is assumed to
be cubic along the element side. The explicit form of the
element can then be obtained about the axis along one side
of the element using an algorithm by Joseph and Rao 8 and
Batoz9. The formulated bending stiffness excludes the need
to carry out numerical integration and is computationally
efficient, especially when a large number of elements are
used. As the breakage of glass is a brittle type of failure
and is assumed to occur when the maximum stress attains
the fracture tensile strength of glass, the advantage of the
numerical integration technique for modelling gradually
spreading plasticity cannot be used in the present studies
and thus an explicit element is preferred.
To carry out a bifurcation or an incremental-iterative
type of second-order analysis, it is necessary to formulate
the tangent stiffness matrix which is composed of the linear, the large displacement and the geometric stiffness
matrices. The linear stiffness matrix is obtained by adding
the in-plane and bending components of the triangular
element as described. The large displacement matrix can
be considered implicitly by a co-ordinate updating process
and the geometric stiffness matrix is obtained by the product of the Cauchy stre:~s and the second-order strain. The
complete matrix has been given by So6.

647

invisible hairy cracks on its surface. The failure stress of a

piece of glass is more dependent on the density of these
hairy cracks than on the theoretical breakage stress which
can be as high as 14000 MPa ~. Thus, a rational design
failure stress is expresed in terms of the duration of load
(WeibuU's theory ]~ for the failure of brittle material), treatment of glass to reduce surface tensile stress and the area
of glass panel being considered. It also depends on the
moisture on the glass surface. Heat strengthened and tempered glass can be used to reduce the tensile stress on the
surface of the glass panels, but they simultaneously reduce
the visibility through the glass. Also, the presence of
impurities such as nickel sulphide will lead to spontaneous
breakage of this type of glass. In some cases such as glass
fins, this tempering process may become useless since the
bending stress is about the strong axis of the glass plate.
To accurately compute the maximum stress in a panel for
checking of stress against failure, the large deflection theory
allowing for the membrane stress should be used. In the
breakage analysis of annealed glass panels, failure is
assumed to occur when the maximum tensile stress is equal
to the breaking stress of the glass which, unfortunately, can
only be obtained on a statistical basis. In general, a factor
of safety of 2.5 is introduced to control the probability of
failure to 8/1000. For tempered glass, the breakage stress
is normally taken as three to four times that of the
annealed glass.
The Canadian Code has adopted the failure prediction
model developed by Beason and Morgan ~2. A simplified
model for failure of glass panels with the effect of load
duration was also presented by Brown ~3. The resistance to
breakage for a surface flaw can be expressed as follows.

f rl
K:= JIo [o-(T)]" dT

(1)

in which T is the load duration, K/is the resistance to failure

by a surface flaw exposed to tensile stress and water vapour, o-(T) is the normal tensile stress at the flaw, expressed
as a function of time, n is a constant and its best fit value.
From experimental data, n is determined as 16 (See Reference 13) and T/is the duration of loading which causes
failure. The glass plate fails when K/reaches some critical
value which depends on the flaw's characteristics and the
stress rate at the flaw. With equation (1), we can adjust the
strength of glass for different load durations. In a computer
analysis, we can compute constant stress causing glass
breakage and relate this to failure stress with different load
durations as follows.

o-~ = o-: [60(n +

(2)

where o-60is the constant stress causing failure of the panel

in 60 s. o-: is the constant stress causing failure in T: s.
The use of a design factor of 2.5 has been introduced to
control the probability of failure (POF) to 0.008. The POF
can be expressed in terms of the Weibull distribution as
follows

1.2. Failure criterion

For commercial annealed glass, which is widely used in
curtain wall systems, tbe failure and breakage of glass is,
generally speaking, due to the stress concentrated at the

POF = 1 - e -B
in which,

(3)

648

N o n f i n e a r finite e l e m e n t analysis o f glass panels: A. K. W. So a n d S. L. Chan

P

1.4. Hinged cylindrical shell

E

R
L
(I
E

=2540 mm
=254 mm
=0.1 rad
=3.10275 kN/mrn'

=0.3

Case 1
h

=12.7 mrn

Case 2
h =6.35 mm

Figure3 Hinged cylindrical shell

0,4

- -

Ver~:ll ddection at pobt C

....

Virgil dlglctlon id point E

~
;>

/
A/

10

15

20

25

30

35

Displacement(rnrn)

Figure4 L o a d - d e f l e c t i o n curve f o r cylindrical shell (case 1,

The first example serves to validate the analysis tool for

cylindrical structures in a snap-through problem and the
strength of the structure when it is made of glass material
is then computed.
Figure 3 shows a circular cylindrical shell of thickness
12.7 mm and subjected to a concentrated central load
applied on the convex side. The longitudinal boundaries are
hinged and immovable while the curved edges are free. A
four-by-four mesh for one-quarter of the panel has been
considered. The problem has been used extensively for testing of a new element and the nonlinear solution method
for snap-through and snap-back analysis. The results of
applied load against the central deflections are shown in
Figure 4. In this example, the arc-length '4 solution method
is used for the load-increment and the minimum residual
displacement method 15 for load-iteration. The results agree
very well with those by Surana 16 and Sabir and Lock 17.
In the second example, the thickness of the cylindrical
shell is reduced to 6.35 mm while the geometric and physical data are the same as in the previous example. The structural response of the modified structure is quite different
from the previous example. Snap-back is observed in
addition to snap-through. The load-deflection curves for
the central point and midpoint of the curved edge are plotted in Figure 5. Again, the results compare very well with
those of References 16 and 17.
The accuracy of the NAShell program in analysing the
structures confirms the validity of the suggested element
and its associated numerical procedure in dealing with
problems involving large change of geometry. The program
encounters no divergence in tracing the complete equilibrium path, demonstrating that the proposed method can
handle, not only the nonlinear analysis of glass panels, but
also other types of shell structures which exhibit instability
and snapping behaviour.

thickness = 12.7 ram)

1.5. Curved glass panel

8= Z t- oj
where e is the natural number, Ao and So are the area and
the characteristic strength of the reference glass panel,
respectively, and A and S,,.p.r are the area and characteristic
strength, respectively, of the glass panel. S,,,p.r is a function
of the Weibull parameter, m, p is the pressure and r is the
aspect ratio. From the collected failure data for in-service
glass 13 and fitted to equation (3), the Weibull parameters
m and So were obtained as 7 and 32.1 MPa, respectively,
for a reference area, Ao, of 1 mL These values are used in
the Canadian Code and adopted herein.

In this example, a curved glass panel with base dimensions

of 1500mm x 1500 mm, radius of 1500 ram, Young's
modulus of 70000 MPa, Poisson's ratio of 0.22 and thickness of 8 ram, and under uniform lateral load is analysed
0.8

0.4
A
Z

O.

1.3. Numerical examples

The developed finite element method is used for the checking of stress in several types of glass structures. The method
will first be validated against bench mark large deflection
problems, then the analytical solution for a simply supported plate under uniformly distributed load and finally the
breakage analysis of a series of tested glass panels. These
examples should demonstrate how the finite element
method can be used effectively to predict the strength of
these structures which this type of analysis appears to have
not yet solved.

0'
X

.,

-0.2,

-0,4

&

"

o.

s.... *'

Sabl ~d

,,

~.

Lock

.j7

",

"~

10

15

20

25
30
Displacement (mrn)

Figure 5 L o a d - d e f l e c t i o n curve f o r cylindrical shell (case 2,

thickness = 6.35 mm)

Nonlinear finite element analysis of glass panels: A. K. W. So and S. L. Chan

Posltlveoressure direction
(normal tb surface),

I~legetht9prel~sur~direction

, (normal zo 8unsce)

./

/'/

,oonner

R =

1500mm

L =
E =

1500mm
71000MPa

0.22

=8mm

649

assumed to act perpendicularly to the glass surface. In

Figure 7, we can see the load-deflection path at the plate
centre and the failure loads for annealed glass and tempered
glass under positive and negative pressure acting on the
projected base area. Failure is assumed when the maximum
principle tensile stress reaches the breakage strength
14.25 MPa which is calculated from equations (3) and (4)
with POF = 0.008, Ao = 1 m 2, So = 32.1 MPa and rn -- 7.
For tempered glass, the failure stress is assumed to be four
times the value for annealed glass 18. In Figures 8 and 9,
we can see the principal stresses on the bottom surface for
negative and positive pressure, respectively, at the instant
of failure pressure.
It can be seen in the analysis that the failure pressure for
annealed and tempered glasses is on the same rates as stress
for the tensile load (positive pressure) case where the geometrical change is not significant. However, for the compressive load (negative pressure) case, the failure pressure
oenter

Figure 6

L a y o u t a n d p r o p e r t i e s o f c u r v e d glass panel

(see Figure 6). The longitudinal boundaries are hinged and

immovable while the curved edges are restrained in the
longitudinal direction. Due to symmetry, only a quarter is
analysed with a grid size of 11 x 11. The wind load is
~, 220
0.
~, 2o0

i
-7

Fa
-3

'~ 180

8=

16o

140

rE

15 5

120
100

60

__~E._ Failure load for Annealed Glass

conner

A) Stress contour at failure load for annealed glass

oenter

20

012
0:4
0'.S
018
1
1.2
Deflection at Centre along the Loading Direction (mm)

A) Positive Pressure
,-,8O

)
I

/o

90

D.
~" 70

Failurepoint
for Annealed Glass

Failurepoint
for Tempered Glass

-10

-10

50

.o
13

Q- 4O

30
20
10
00

Deflection at Cenlre along the Loading Direction (mm)

oonner

B) Stress contour at failure load for tempered glass

B) Negative Pressure
Figure 7

Load-deflection

p a t h at c e n t r e o f c u r v e d glass p a n e l

Figure8

Principal stress on b o t t o m
p r e s s u r e (all stresses in M P a )

surface under negative

Nonlinear finite element analysis of glass panels: A. K. W. So and S. L. Chan

650

center

1.5
W
h

0.5

-I
+ - TImolheniko 18
and W o ~

oonner
A) Stress contour at failure load for annealed glass

100

200

3o0

Figure 10 Load-deflection of a simply supposed square plate

oeriter

12
olo= ~TI0

30
O0

100

200

. ~ 300

Figure 11 Bending stresses and centre and corner

oonner
B) Stress contour at failure load for tempered glass

12

Figure9 Principal stress on bottom surface under positive

pressure (all stresses in MPa)

ratio may not be equal to the ratio for failure pressure on

breakage stresses. This is due to the change in the geometry
of the glass resulting in the nonlinearity between the stress
and the load. In other words, the strength of a glass structure made of tempered and annealed glass is not always in
the same ratio as their breakage stress. As demonstrated in
this example, the tempering process for glass has a very
different response when the structure is under loads in different directions. Care should be taken in allowing for this
discrepancy in glass structure behaviour which is not a consideration in structures made of other materials. Although
concrete is also weak in tension, its design generally
ignores the presence of the portion in tension. For glass
structures, cracks due to tension will lead directly to the
breakage of the complete piece of glass and thus cannot
be allowed. This characteristic of glass as an engineering
material significantly alters the design philosophy and
concept.

Eh'

V CentreA = t ~ n k o
in
X PolnlB ~.Wc~nm~ 18
PointC ~ ! ~

100

200

qb'
Eh'

300

Figure 12 Membrane stresses at centre, centre edge and corner

Nonlinear finite element analysis of glass panels: A. K. W. So and S. L. Chan

1.6. A square simply supported plate under uniform
load
In this example, a 10 in simply supported square plate with
edge displacement fully restrained is analysed. The thickness of the plate is 0.04 in while the Young's modulus is
27.6 x 106 psi and Poisson's ratio is 0.316. The objective
of this problem is to check the accuracy of the stress computed by the developed program.
The deflection, bending and membrane stresses are plotted in Figures 10-12, respectively. The analytical solution
to this problem by Timc,shenko and Woinowsky-Krieger~9
is also plotted in the sarne figures for comparison.
It can be seen from Figures 10-12 that the results
obtained by the present program are in very good agreement with the analytical solution. The validity of the
method in this problem confirms its reliable application to
plate analysis involving a large change in geometry. The
accuracy of the analysis results show clearly that the proposed method can be u:~ed for the design of widely used

651

fiat glass under severe wind loads. The analysis results

shows not only the thickness required for a certain probability of failure, but also can be used to calculate the corresponding deflection in a single analysis and to determine
the highest stressed region in the plate. Obviously, cracking
in this highly stressed zone has a more detrimental effect
on the strength of the glass than in other areas. This information is valuable for the safety inspection of glass plates.
1.7. Failure test of in-service glass
In this example, the test results obtained by the Institute for
Research in Construction (IRC) of the National Research
Council of Canada for 47 in-service window glass removed
from the University of Ottawa's Thompson Residence in
1986 were compared.
The breaking stress of glass is determined by assuming
the characteristic strength equals 32.1 MPa as recommended by the Canadian code and the corresponding
breakage stress is then computed from equation (3). It is

Table 1 Test results of in-service glass

No

P6o (kPa)

Thickness (mm)

X (mm)

Y (mm)

NAShell

Ratio

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47

2.84
4.57
2.26
5.27
4.47
4.10
5.62
4.12
5.29
5.01
4.47
5.75
3.66
5.39
4.79
5.70
5.73
6.08
4.58
4.77
5.16
2.92
3.38
5.14
5.54
6.18
5.04
5.03
4.04
5.02
2.19
2.46
2.54
3,75
2.73
3.11
3.11
4.64
4.83
2.66
1.86
3.01
3.27
4.27
4.51
3.98
3.08

4.10
4.00
4.10
4.00
4.05
4.00
4.07
3.90
4.00
4.00
3.93
3.95
3.84
3.90
3.95
3.88
4.04
3.93
3.90
4.09
4.01
4.00
3.97
3.86
4.00
3.96
4.00
3.96
3.96
3.91
3.83
3.77
3.69
3.75
4.00
4.05
3.93
4.01
4.81
3.80
3.83
4.05
3.94
4.04
3.86
3.87
3.74

1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1298
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1340
1340
1340
1342
1357
1356
1356
1358
1358
1374
1374
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300

905
905
905
905
905
905
897
930
929
930
928
925
925
924
925
930
925
900
900
900
895
900
899
930
900
975
975
975
975
975
916
916
916
916
1300
1300
1300
1300
1300
1342
1342
1062
1062
1065
1065
1065
1065

1.73
1.73
1.73
1,73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.73
1.70
1.70
1.70
1.70
1.70
1.66
1.66
1.58
1.66
1.43
1.43
1.36
1.43
1.81
1.21
1.21
1.81
1.66
1.73
1.66
1.66
1.58

1.64
2.64
1.30
3.04
2.58
2.37
3.24
2.38
3.05
2.89
2.58
3.32
2.11
3.11
2.76
3.29
3.31
3,51
2.64
2.75
2.98
1.68
1.95
2.97
3.20
3.65
2.97
2.97
2.38
2.96
1.32
1.48
1.61
2.26
1.91
2.17
2.29
3.24
2.67
2.21
1.54
1.66
1.97
2.46
2.72
2.40
1.95

Mean ratio = 2.51

652

Nonlinear finite element analysis of glass panels: A. K. W. So and S. L. Chan

generally believed that the in-service time reduces the

breakage stress of a glass panel due to the increased density
of hairy cracks on the glass surface.
The equivalent 60 s pressure of the test results and output
by NAShell are tabulated in T a b l e 1. The average ratio of
test failure results to the predicted breaking load by NAShell is 2.51. This ratio is considered to be in a reasonable
range because the failure stress used in NAShell has
included the probability of failure of 8/1000. Not single
sample had a failure load lower than the predicted load,
indicating the reliability of the suggested method for the
design of glass panels.

Conclusions
A finite element model is proposed for nonlinear and breakage analysis of glass panels subjected to lateral wind load.
The simple triangular element used in the present studies
performs very well in the problems studied in this paper.
The nonlinear numerical method together with the presented element is capable of dealing with analysis involving
large geometrical change and snapping instability. The
moderately large deflection behaviour for actual glass
panels is believed to be well within the range of application
of the proposed method.
It can be seen that the behaviour of glass is highly nonlinear in many cases when the breaking pressure is
approached. This demonstrates the importance of considering the effect of change in geometry in glass panels when
computing stress and deflection. In many cases, when the
geometry changes significantly, the stress contour differs
very considerably between the linear and the nonlinear
analyses.
An important observation is that, as the stress is not
necessary proportional to the load in the higher nonlinear
range, the ratio between the failure pressure for tempered
glass may not be equal to four times that of the annealed
glass, as is normally assumed for the increase in breaking
stress in an annealed glass caused by the tempering process.
Thus, for glass structures with behaviour controlled by
instability and large deflection, the use of higher strength
glass, the tempered glass, may not result in a corresponding
increase in strength as in the case for flat glass design. Special care should be taken to select an appropriate type of
glass for a particular form of glass structure of different
characteristics. A finite element analysis computer program
such as the one proposed in this paper can be used in the

prediction of the pressure at failure when large geometrical

change is likely.

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