Category: GLASS AND GLAZING

A concrete slab on grade is a level surface of concrete that lies directly on the ground. Slabs on grade are used for roads, sidewalks, patios, airport runways, and basements or ground floors of buildings. A slab-on-grade floor usually experiences little structural stress except a direct transmission of compression between its superimposed loads and the ground beneath,…

Building codes are concerned with several functional aspects of glass: its structural adequacy against wind and impact loads; its role in providing natural light in habitable rooms; its breakage safety; its safety in preventing the spread of fire through a building; and its role in determining the energy consumption of a building. The International Building…

Glass is a two-way pipeline for the flow of both conducted and radiated heat. As noted previously, glass, even when doubled or tripled, conducts heat rapidly into or out of a building. It can also collect and trap large amounts of solar heat inside a building. In residential buildings, the conduction of heat through glass…

Glazing Small Lights Small lights of glass are subjected neither to large wind force stresses nor to large amounts of thermal expansion and contraction. They may be glazed by very simple means (Figure 17.16). In traditional wood sash, the glass is first held in place by small metal glazier’s points and then sealed on the outside with glazing…

The major ingredient of glass is sand (silicon dioxide). Sand is mixed with soda ash (sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate), lime, and small amounts of alumina, potassium oxide, and various elements to control color, then heated to form glass. The finished material, while seemingly crystalline and convincingly solid, is actually a supercooled liquid, for it…

The origins of glass are lost in prehistory. Initially a material for colored beads and small bottles, glass was first used in windows in Roman times. The largest known piece of Roman glass, a crudely cast sheet used for a window in a public bath at Pompeii, was nearly 3 by 4 feet (800 by…