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Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Hawkmoon on May 12, 2021, 12:51:53 AM

Title: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Hawkmoon on May 12, 2021, 12:51:53 AM
300 foot high glass bridge in China shatters:

https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/tourist-hangs-from-shattered-glass-bridge-in-china/

Tell me again why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use glass as the walking surface of a bridge.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Nick1911 on May 12, 2021, 01:03:57 AM
300 foot high glass bridge in China shatters:

https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/tourist-hangs-from-shattered-glass-bridge-in-china/

Tell me again why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use glass as the walking surface of a bridge.

Because it looks cool having a transparent surface under your feet?

Because glass has excellent compressive strength and meh tensile strength, but these are well understood properties that should allow it to be safely used to carry loads provided the engineering is done correctly?
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Hawkmoon on May 12, 2021, 01:27:22 AM
Because it looks cool having a transparent surface under your feet?

Because glass has excellent compressive strength and meh tensile strength, but these are well understood properties that should allow it to be safely used to carry loads provided the engineering is done correctly?

Yeah, I know all that. It's the mode of failure that makes it a non-starter for me. Steel bends. Wood cracks. You get warnings of impending failure. Glass? It just shatters.

Thanks, but no thanks.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Fly320s on May 12, 2021, 05:37:33 AM
Looks to me like the glass panels were lifted out of their frames by the high winds, not shattered.  In either case, I would think that glass is laminated so it can't shatter.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: K Frame on May 12, 2021, 06:41:15 AM
My question is... WTF were tourists doing on the damned thing in gale force winds?


" It's the mode of failure that makes it a non-starter for me. Steel bends. Wood cracks. You get warnings of impending failure. Glass? It just shatters."

To be sure, they're not sticking a flattened out drinking glass up there and calling it good. My guess is that the panels are laminated safety glass, probably several laminations.

Even if all of the glass laminations shattered at once, which is highly unlikely, the laminate binder would keep the panels in one piece, just like with a windshield.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Hawkmoon on May 12, 2021, 07:21:52 AM

To be sure, they're not sticking a flattened out drinking glass up there and calling it good. My guess is that the panels are laminated safety glass, probably several laminations.

Even if all of the glass laminations shattered at once, which is highly unlikely, the laminate binder would keep the panels in one piece, just like with a windshield.

It's more likely to be tempered glass, and I don't know if tempered glass can be laminated.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: RoadKingLarry on May 12, 2021, 08:49:02 AM
Because it looks cool having a transparent surface under your feet?

Because glass has excellent compressive strength and meh tensile strength, but these are well understood properties that should allow it to be safely used to carry loads provided the engineering is done correctly?

It was made in China, what do you expect?
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: K Frame on May 12, 2021, 09:51:20 AM
It's more likely to be tempered glass, and I don't know if tempered glass can be laminated.

I sincerely doubt that it would be tempered glass. It's being walked on continually, and with that comes the possibility of scratches, which can dramatically affect the stability of tempered glass. And, when tempered glass fails, it fails quickly and catastrophically and would very likely drop anyone on that panel straight through.

Laminated glass would maintain a safety factor and would help prevent anyone on the panel when it breaks from plunging through.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: K Frame on May 12, 2021, 09:54:29 AM
Interesting website that talks about some of the glass options...

https://blog.innovatebuildingsolutions.com/2016/06/03/create-outstanding-glass-bridge-fail/
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: WLJ on May 12, 2021, 09:59:05 AM
It was made in China, what do you expect?

Because the US has a perfect track record when it comes to things not falling down
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: MechAg94 on May 12, 2021, 10:22:44 AM
Because the US has a perfect track record when it comes to things not falling down
We use a lot of Chinese made materials also.   =D

.....and sometimes people fly jets into them.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Fly320s on May 12, 2021, 12:33:39 PM
We use a lot of Chinese made materials also.   =D

.....and sometimes people fly jets into them.

Jet fuel can't melt laminated glass.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Angel Eyes on May 12, 2021, 01:16:59 PM
Perhaps the tourists thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0NJsr5m4I



Jet fuel can't melt laminated glass.

Thanks Rosie.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: MechAg94 on May 12, 2021, 01:52:14 PM
Jet fuel can't melt laminated glass.
:laugh:
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: dogmush on May 12, 2021, 02:11:16 PM
Why do we think it's glass?

I mena, I know the New York Post called it glass and all that, but just from a weight prospective I think it's just as likely to be a several layers of laminated polycarbinate or some such material.  A 2.54cm thick piece of glass is heavy as heck.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Hawkmoon on May 12, 2021, 06:21:03 PM
Interesting website that talks about some of the glass options...

https://blog.innovatebuildingsolutions.com/2016/06/03/create-outstanding-glass-bridge-fail/

I sit corrected. Laminated glass it is.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Jim147 on May 12, 2021, 07:34:12 PM
I sit corrected. Laminated glass it is.

How many lambs did it take to make that much glass?
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: TommyGunn on May 12, 2021, 07:46:04 PM
Perhaps the tourists thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0NJsr5m4I



Thanks Rosie.

Now,  that's just cruel.   :rofl:
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: WLJ on May 12, 2021, 07:47:55 PM
Perhaps the tourists thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0NJsr5m4I


Kid logic: When the glass bridge you're standing on starts cracking stomp harder.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: Bogie on May 12, 2021, 10:20:50 PM
When we were doing the Chemical Group spinoff from Monsanto, one of the major products was something called Saflex.
 
Windshields. Side-laminated windows (entry resistant), and projectile-resistant glass. It was an interlayer put between two or more sheets of glass in a vacuum oven environment.
 
I saw a 1" laminated chunk with a .38 Super stuck in it...
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: JN01 on May 13, 2021, 01:44:46 AM
Quote
Winds approaching 100 mph broke the bridge apart,

In the first place, going out for a stroll in 100 mph winds is not the brightest idea.
Title: Re: I would have died on the spot
Post by: K Frame on May 13, 2021, 06:49:35 AM
CN Tower in Toronto has glass panels in the floor of the observation deck, which is about 1,100 feet up. It's a weird feeling walking across those panels.