News and press releases February 2010
Glass design with Dlubal software

Design of Glasses in RFEM

Toughened glasses can be modeled and calculated by the general FEM program RFEM. Take advantage of the RFEM material library which contains a rich variety of commercial glass types ready for immediate use. Model glass surfaces of any form, even curved surfaces are possible. Use nodal and line supports and apply two-dimensional supports by means of elastic foundations. Special nodal supports, common in glass design, can be represented by solid elements. Those elements can also be used to model contact properties between glass surfaces and supports. Subsequent to the calculation, the results show the relevant stresses in the surfaces and solid elements.

Furthermore, you can handle glass surfaces as part of the entire structure so that even deformations of the supporting structure can be considered in the stress design.

RF-GLASS for Laminated Safety and Insulating Glasses

In case the glass surface has a laminated structure, such as double glazings or laminated glasses, you need the RFEM add-on module RF-GLASS.

Once the glass surfaces are modeled in RFEM, RF-GLASS imports the data from the main program. Define specific glass structures by using different layers. Take advantage of libraries of several glass types and foil producers. As the glass surfaces are calculated by means of surface components that are detached from the total structure, you have to import or specify the support conditions as nodal and line supports. You can also represent the pane borders by supporting cross-sections so that you can model the support stiffness of glass borders realistically. The calculation can be carried out with and without shear coupling.

In case of insulated glasses, RF-GLASS uses special solid elements for the calculation considering even the gas law.

The relevant climatic load cases require only minimum input and are generated automatically.

Output for Glass Packets and Corresponding Layers

Subsequent to the calculation, the results for the deflection analysis and the stress design are displayed in tables and in the graphic. The module shows the stresses for all glass packets respectively on the top and bottom side as well as in the glass center. All results tables and graphics can be integrated in the RFEM printout report.

Further Information and Demo Versions

Dlubal Engineering Software

Am Zellweg 2

D-93464 Tiefenbach

Tel.: +49 (0) 9673 9203 0
http://www.dlubal.com

info@dlubal.com