Numerical and experimental tests on adhesive bond behaviour in timber-glass walls

In order to study the behaviour of a timber-glass wall with an epoxy based adhesive bond under extreme loading conditions, a set of experimental and numerical tests was performed. The experimental part consisted of small-size failure tests, related to an evaluation of the adhesive bond behaviour, as well as of life-size failure test of the timber-glass wall for an evaluation of the performance of the complete composite wall. These experiments were simulated numerically by the nonlinear finite element method, where the adhesive was modelled as a visco-hyperelastic material, and the timber-adhesive adhesion was modelled by a cohesive, elasto-damage traction-separation softening law. The qualitative agreement between the experimental and the numerical results was reasonably good, which indicates that the prediction of the highly nonlinear, inelastic and strain-rate dependent response of the timber-glass walls with an adhesive bond under extreme loading conditions can be estimated reasonably well by the nonlinear finite element method.