Enclos has identified a novel technique that substantially stiffens glass of given thickness and size via a pattern prestress. Reductions in deflection of greater than 50% have been noted on numerical models and are expected in forthcoming prototype mockups using this technique. The potential integration of this technology with either large format glass or thin glass such as AGC’s Falcon Glass creates many intriguing opportunities for performance improvement and material optimization.
The technology relies on a prestress pattern that can be generated by cold warping a specially formed surface into a flat pane. Unlike most cold warping that starts with a flat sheet of glass and results in a final warped surface, this stiffening approach can start with a three-dimensional warped form that is then deformed elastically to a prestressed planar lite. The pattern of membrane prestress that results is generated entirely within the glass. The center region of the glass is put into net tension, which is balanced by regions of compression within the glass at the perimeter, adjacent to the frame. The membrane tension region that develops increases the glass stiffness for deflections out-of-plane, in a similar manner to the way tensioning a cable generates higher stiffness to resist applied lateral loads acting on it. Numerical modeling and prototype evaluation conducted through collaboration between Enclos and AGC will be presented in this groundbreaking study.
