Designing a glass parapet
It needs to be highlighted that a glass parapet is made up of various materials which, in spite of being hugely different from one another, must be able to guarantee the global efficiency of the structure:
- aluminium or steel: crystalline – linear-elastic – ductile – invariant to temperature
- glass: amorphous – linear-elastic – fragile – invariant to temperature
- polimer interlayer: amorphous – viscoelastic – ductile – highly sensitive to temperature
Although it is true that the behaviour of glass and aluminium (or steel) is not affected by the operating temperature, the close correlation between the behaviour of the laminated glass (a glass-plastic-glass sandwich) and the temperature cannot be ignored.
Standard UNI EN 16612: 2019 provides relevant temperature thresholds to be used as reference for various applications.
A laminated safety glass module (the use of monolithic glass is not allowed in Italy) requires CE marking.