Adé ETAG 002 – A Eurocode‐compliant design concept for silicone adhesive joints

Hyperelastic adhesives such as structural silicones have excellent properties for bonding brittle materials like glass. They typically have a low modulus of elasticity, high elongation at break and good adhesion to many materials such as glass, stainless steel and aluminium. They transfer loads homogeneously and can compensate for large differences in deformation caused, for example, by wind loads and temperature discrepancies. However, there is no uniform design concept for silicone adhesive joints in structural facade construction, so it is not surprising that a large number of possibilities exist for designing silicone adhesive joints. This paper presents a general procedure for the state‐of‐the‐art design of hyperelastic adhesive joints, which is independent of the selected silicone adhesive and ETAG 002. It uses the approaches from the Eurocode 1900 and 1991 in connection with the ETAG 002 for the dimensioning in order to create a link between both concepts on the one hand and to create a dimensioning approach according to European law, namely the Eurocode, on the other hand. Case studies on a hanging car on thin, glued glass panes and a freely formed glass facade show its application.