Background
Designed by architect Zaha Hadid, the building is quadrilateral in plan. The above-grade exterior walls consist largely of four-sided, unitized, shop-structurally-glazed curtain wall panels. The free-form void that extends through the center of the building is intended to resemble a melting ice cube from the exterior. The void area is glazed with hot bent and cold bent glass.
Context
Façade Design Review, Field and Factory Testing, Field and Factory Inspections. Structural Engineering, Finite Element Analysis, Cold bent Glass, Laquered Glass.
Due to the complex shape of the void facades and unique exposure of different areas to solar radiation, a combination of cold-bend flat and double curved hot-bend annealed and tempered glass units were envisioned. Our Client needed to ensure proper Quality Control on the glass manufacturing in Tianjin in the People’s Republic of China.
Later during construction, quality control issues arose with the black lacquered glass installed in the lift lobbies of the towers in each floor where it was necessary to perform field quality inspections.
Finite Element Analysis of structural silicone adhesives was conducted to verify the design of the silicone used for the cold bent glass.
Solution
Quality control inspection of flat and curved glass was performed in Shenzhen and Guangzhou China where all manufactured flat glass to be cold bent on site was inspected against ad-hoc quality inspection plan prepared by nCLO3URE engineers. 3D scanning of each curved glass was performed in order to verify the geometry of the manufactured glass against the manufacturing drawings.
nCLO3URE engineers also performed field inspection of the black lacquered glass installed in the lift lobbies of both left and right parts of the project. The inspections were carried using ASTM standards.
nCLO3URE engineers also performed a design verification of the cold bent glass panels. The primary focus was the long term strength and behavior of the Dow Corning 993 and 3362N silicones used to bond the glass on the frames and both glass into insulated glass units. The preliminary finite element analysis models were developed to both investigate the short- and long-term induced stresses on silicone sealants utilized in the cold bent IGUs and the subsequent likelihood of material failure. The FE analysis approach was developed using the general purpose finite element program Abaqus v2016.
