Wood and glass -
An innovative combination
Innovation in
wood and glass
We drive cars with bonded rear and front windscreens. The stiffening effect of the glazing is included in all tests and crash tests. Almost every underground railway, almost every bus has statically load-bearing bonding – it is approved for traffic. Only in the construction sector is it a little more difficult with glass-wood bonding.
Why we deal with the topic of combining wood and
glass.
Over 10 years ago, we took part in a project organised by Holzforschung Austria with the question: How can glass be structurally stiffened with wood? The reason for this was the plastic window industry. They began to glue glass into the sash and omit the steel inserts. This was mainly due to weight and price savings as well as thermal and structural reasons. Today, statically load-bearing insulating glass is glued into 90% of all PVC-U windows. The PVC-U window industry therefore prompted the Austrian timber window manufacturers to ask themselves: Why can’t we glue glass into our timber windows? That was then our topic. We took part in the research project, made our products available and carried out countless bonding tests with every conceivable adhesive material.
Innovation in wood and glass
Test
Bonding test
We tried epoxy resins, polyurethanes and polysulphides, but they didn’t work. Not until we realised that we needed to protect the wood. When bonding glass to the wood, the adhesive forms a protective layer. That was the way to go. We could now omit surface treatment of the wood and glue our glass directly to it. The adhesive was also the protection, the preservative of the product. This works wonderfully with silicone. This means that when we glue our glass to the birch veneer plywood moulding, we are gluing it to a raw, untreated surface.
We connect a glued laminated timber construction with an insulating glass element, which is bonded to a birch veneer plywood strip at the factory and screwed directly into the timber construction. The glass provides the stiffening effect. The main element, the insulating glass, is manufactured by us and bonded to a veneer plywood moulding in the workshop and then screwed into the construction on site. The façade composite must fulfil a number of static requirements.
