The wide acceptance of glass as a building material encourages many requests for transparent, almost dematerialized appearing building envelopes. This requires glass structures, which are increasingly involved in the load transfer. Adhesively bonded connections allow substance-to-substance bonds of the adherend parts with a homogeneous distribution of forces while reducing local stress peaks. Besides the usual mechanical connections, load bearing, structural bonds therefore becoming considerably important for glass as appropriate for the involved material.
Epoxy resin adhesives are especially suited for structural bonding for point fixings. A variety of commercially available epoxy resin adhesives is known and has different areas of application, like automotive industry, mechanical engineering as well as construction engineering. According to our research and investigations an optimally appropriate adhesive could not be identified so far. Especially the thermal stability and resistance to ageing is insufficient for outdoor applications.
Beginning with basic formulations for epoxy resin adhesives, proper starting materials are determined by examination of the thermo-mechanical, mechanical and chemical properties. The basic formulations are then modified by the addition of fillers and additives. This influenced the mechanical strength and the thermal stability as well as the location of the glass transition region. Even the ageing behaviour could be positively changed by these modifications.