Additive manufacturing has become increasingly important due to its ability to create complex geometries, also with glass as a material. Various conventional additive manufacturing techniques can already be transferred to glass as a material, such as the Fused Deposition Modeling. For the built environment particular attention is paid to the substance-to-substance bond with a float glass plate. A successful application of material to the plate would allow the generation of new connections and constructions.
Investigated points of interest are the connection points between the float glass plate and the applied glass, as well as the connections between layers themselves. Preliminary investigations by finite element methods indicate that the contact angle between the deposited material and the float glass pane has a major influence on the maximum stresses. The contact angle can be influenced by different temperature settings during the printing process. This also applies to the connection between the respective layers.
For additively manufactured glass, material properties such as strength and maximum load-bearing capacity are derived on the basis of experiments – for example a shear test is developed to determine the shear strength of a glass-glass-joint.
