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Education Plus
Students’ project showcased
It has been designed with a safety factor of 1.6 and can hold a safe load of over 8,000 kg.
The final-year students of B. E. Civil Engineering of the College of Engineering, Guindy — Hepzibah Thampi, V. Jayakrishna, R. Surya and Tarun Chordia — have constructed a structure using glass called ‘The Mirage’. The 5 mt x 5 mt structure explores the possibility of glass being used in place of concrete.
This outdoor permanent structure has a platform and a walkway at a height of about three metres and is supported by a steel-concrete composite structure. It has been designed with a safety factor of 1.6 and can hold a safe load of over 8,000 kg. The platform and walkway are made of 16 laminated panels of clear, toughened, tempered, heat-strengthened glass.
Since the glass walkway and platform are transparent, one can look down at the ground while standing or walking on it.
Many buildings nowadays use glass for staircases and even as flooring material since you can have fountains or pebbles or different designs beneath. Glass slabs can take a lot of weight when subjected to pure compression but what has to be improved upon is its bending or flexural property.
To improve the bending quality of glass, the students have pasted two slabs of glass of 10 mm and 12 mm thickness using a 1.54 mm layer of Polyvinyl Butylene (PVB) and an additional 0.76mm thick layer of PVB. Should the glass fail for any reason, the lamination layer will hold an object placed over it and prevent it from falling through and still support the load.
To avoid errors while erecting the glass, the students chose the template design of glass where plywood pieces (templates) are cut out to replicate the measurements of glass.
Special fittings called Spyders (Single, Two and Four armed) have been used to hold the glass above the supporting composite structure.
DEEPA H. RAMAKRISHNAN
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