Residual Stress Meets Facade – Cold-Formed Glass in RFEM Planning Process
A facade glass pane that is bent cold during installation carries that stress permanently, and this session shows how to capture it in RFEM 6. An insulating glass unit is modeled with the Glass Design add-on, bent into shape with imposed nodal deformations applied through a helper construction, fixed in its frame, and loaded with wind, all as construction stages. The results show how the stresses of each stage are checked to DIN 18008, and why the load duration makes the permanent bending rather than the wind the governing case.
Webinar language
EnglishRecommended skill level
Skills you will gain
- Build an insulating glass unit as a glass composition and turn it into a solid glass composition model
- Apply a cold-bending shape through imposed nodal deformations on a helper construction instead of on the glass
- Connect a helper construction to the pane with rigid links and line hinges that couple only the bending direction
- Model bending, fixing in the frame, and wind as construction stages that carry stresses into the final state
- Explain why permanent and short-term loads lead to different design ratios under DIN 18008
This webinar includes
Webinar content
Andreas Hörold introduces Ulrich Lex, who develops the Glass Design, Masonry Design, and Construction Stages Analysis add-ons. Ulrich sets out the three parts and the two reasons glass gets cold-formed: a curved facade built from panes made flat and bent on installation, and a facade that ends up not quite plane because of installation tolerances.
The base data activates Construction Stages Analysis and Glass Design with DIN 18008 and tightens the geometric tolerance for small radii. An insulating glass unit is assembled as a glass composition and placed on a plane surface with elastic line supports and nodal supports, and the glass composition model becomes a solid model with its supports per layer and a user-defined spacer.
Two load cases hold the bending and the wind. The bending could come from a load with springs or from imposed line deformations, which only vary linearly, so imposed nodal deformations are chosen. To keep stress peaks out of the glass, they act on a helper member just off the pane, held by supports with soft springs.
Rigid links run from the helper member to the pane edge, with a line hinge that couples only the bending direction and keeps the others soft. The segment also shows how to add line hinges to the automatically generated glass composition model, and warns that these connections can be lost when the composition is changed later.
The bent shape is entered as imposed nodal deformations derived from the target radius, either from a prepared list or from a formula, growing from zero at the fixed edge to the full offset at the free one. Applying them through the helper construction rather than directly on the glass avoids internal forces from restrained movement in the plane.
Three construction stages describe the installation: the pane is bent, then fixed in the frame, and finally the helper construction is removed and wind applied. Loads are assigned per stage, the analysis settings are matched to the stages, and the combination wizard creates combinations that carry the stresses from the bending stage into the final state.
Only the glass design is calculated, because load cases computed on their own would lack the supports of their stage. The results set the bending stage against the final stage, and the bending governs: DIN 18008 treats the imposed deformation as permanent and the wind as short-term, with different factors on the allowable stress that cannot simply be mixed.
Who this webinar is for
- Facade engineers designing curved glazing that is produced flat and cold-bent on site
- Engineers assessing the extra stresses from installation tolerances in a facade that is not quite plane
- RFEM 6 users who design glass with the Glass Design add-on and have not yet combined it with construction stages
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Veronika Klöck
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Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Steinkühler
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I've attended the webinar on glass design. Excellent explanation. I don't design glass structures; however, it was very interesting to explore the potential of the software.
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Instructors
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Ulrich Lex
Product Engineering & Customer Support
Ulrich develops the glass structure features and runs the quality assurance processes in RFEM, while also supporting users directly.
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Andreas Hörold
Marketing & Public Relations
Andreas creates technical content and public relations material for Dlubal and hosts the company's webinars in German and English.
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