Numerical investigation of insulation glass units with undercut point fittings

The highest transparency in glass façades is obtained with point fitted glass units. Point fitted insulating glass units minimize thermal bridging and lead to glass façades with better energy efficiency. Though, insufficient knowledge is present to offer a design method for point fittings in insulating glass. Therefore research has been carried out to extend the existing SLG-design-method of Beyer for point fitted single and laminated glass to insulation glass units. This paper presents first results of this research campaign. Load bearing tests on point fittings in single glazing have been conducted. An FEA-model of the point fitting is calibrated by the test data according to the method of Kasper. By means of this verified FEA-model, the influence on the stress peak at the borehole of the edge distance of the point fitting as well as the edge bond is investigated. In addition, the size of the so called “local area” is adjusted for insulation glass units.