Study on the stress and failure strength around the hole in point supported glass panels

Stresses around holes of tempered glass panels are tend to be ignored in the practical design of point supported glass facades. With the intent of investigating the stress distribution around holes in tempered glasses, the experimental and theoretical studies were firstly carried out and the finite element model was subsequently developed using ANSYS software. Afterwards, the theoretical formula was combined with test results to predict the failure stresses in the vicinity of holes and the stress limitations were proposed. It is concluded that the theoretical and numerical results are at least consistent with the chosen test data although they have some uncertainties and limitations in the analyses. The stresses around holes are significantly higher than those on the large area and lateral surface and ought to be the controlling parameter in the design. The maximum principal stress of some random point on the tempered glass panel is proportional to the external load and inversely proportional to the square of the panel thickness if the spacing between this point and the centroid of glass panel is determined. Furthermore, the clamping effect of the button head bolt fitting is more pronounced than that of countersunk bolt fitting and capable of reducing stresses near holes, especially for the thin plate.