Estimating laminated glass beam strength via stochastic Rigid Body-Spring Model

A numerical investigation on the load carrying capacity of a laminated glass beam modelled as a material with a random strength distribution is presented. The strength values were distributed randomly within the beam by a Monte Carlo simulation, according to statistical distributions calibrated on experimental results obtained from literature. A preliminary computational analysis based on the weakest link in the chain-model was conducted to study the dependence of the beam estimated limit load on the adopted discretization. Then, after determining the optimal size of the mesh, the elastic-plastic problem has been solved by a Rigid Body-Spring Model (RBSM) discrete approach. Finally, the variability of the load capacity of the structural element is evaluated as a function of the statistics of the strength related to the size of the defects. One thousand simulations were performed to obtain statistically significant quantitative results.