Structural Glass Beams with Embedded Glass Fibre Reinforcement

This paper investigates the possibilities of pultruded glass fibre rods as embeddedreinforcement in SentryGlas (SG) laminated glass beams. To do so, a series of pullouttests, to investigate the bond strength of the rods to the laminate, and a series ofbeam tests, to investigate the post-breakage response of the beams, have beenperformed. Both test series have been conducted for round E-glass fibre rods andflat S-glass fibre rods. The pull-out tests showed superior pull-out strength of theflat rods, due to their large bond area. Furthermore, the beam tests showed superiorpost-breakage performance of the beams with the flat rods, due to higher strengthand stiffness of the S-glass fibres. Overall, it is concluded that embedding glassfibre reinforcement in a SG-laminated glass beam is a very promising concept

Modeling the Structural Response of Reinforced Glass Beams using an SLA Scheme

This paper investigates whether a novel computational sequentially linear analysis(SLA) technique, which is especially developed for modeling brittle materialresponse, is applicable for modeling the structural response of metal reinforcedglass beams. To do so, computational SLA results are compared with experimentalresults of four-point bending tests. The results show similarities in loaddisplacementcurves and to some extent also in cracking behaviour. Overall, it isconcluded that the SLA scheme is a very promising technique to model thestructural response of reinforced glass beams, which will be even further improvedin future research

A durable coating to prevent stress corrosion effects on the surface strength of annealed glass

The durability of an innovative polymeric coating recently developed by the authors to prevent stress corrosion in annealed glass is herein examined. The coating, having functional graded properties through the thickness, is optimised to provide a very good adhesion with glass and an excellent hydrophobic behavior on the side exposed to the environment, thus creating a good barrier to humidity, which is the triggering agent for stress corrosion. Three scenarios are analysed in terms of ageing: (i) cyclic loading, accomplished by subjecting coated samples to repetitive loading; (ii) natural weathering, performed by exposing coated samples to atmospheric agents; (iii) artificial weathering, carried out by exposing coated specimens to fluorescent UV lamps, heat and water. The durability of the coating is assessed indirectly, on the base of its residual effectiveness in preventing stress corrosion, by comparing the bending strength, obtained with the coaxial double ring test, of aged coated glass specimens with that of un-coated and freshly coated specimens. The obtained results prove that the proposed formulation is almost insensitive to cyclic loading, maintains a very good performance in case of natural weathering, whereas is slightly more sensitive to artificial weathering

Performance of Sentry-Glas-laminated metal-reinforced glass beams at 23, -20, and 60 ºC

Keywords: 1=reinforced 2=beam 3=SentryGlas 4=interlayer 5=temperature 6=redundancy. Abstract To validate the novel concept of laminating a metal reinforcement to a glass beam using a SentryGlas (SG) interlayer, a series of bending tests has been performed at 23, -20 and 60°C on 1.5 m SG-laminated metal-reinforced glass beams. The beams consisted of three glass layers with a stainless steel box section laminated in between the glass at the lower edge. The test results showed high redundancy of the beam specimens at all tested temperature levels. However, the specific response of the beam specimens varied at different temperature levels. At 23°C the beam specimens showed the highest residual strength, whereas the residual strength was reduced at both -20 and 60°C. This difference in response was caused by a difference in glass cracking behaviour and the occurrence of plastic hinges in the beams. These plastic hinges limited the residual strength of the beam and probably originated from a more brittle response of the SG at -20°C and a lower metal-to-glass bond strength of the SG at 60°C. Since the SG-laminated metal-reinforced glass beams showed promising results, future research at TU Delft will further explore the possibilities of this concept

Group schema therapy for cluster-C personality disorders:A multicentre open pilot study

BackgroundGroup schema therapy (GST) is increasingly popular as a treatment for personality disorders (PDs), including Cluster-C PDs. Individual ST has proven to be effective for Cluster-C PD patients, while the evidence for GST is limited. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of GST for Cluster-C PD. Moreover, differ- ences between the specific Cluster-C PDs (avoidant PD, dependent PD and obsessive-compulsive PD) were explored.MethodsA multicentre open trial was conducted, including 137 patients with a Cluster-C PD (avoidant PD: n = 107, dependent PD: n = 11 and obsessive- compulsive PD: n = 19). Patients received 30 weekly GST sessions with a maximum of 180 min of individual ST and five optional monthly booster sessions. Outcome measures including Cluster-C PD severity, general psychopathological symptoms, quality of life, functional impairment, happiness, PD-related beliefs, self-esteem, self- ideal discrepancy, schemas and schema modes were assessed at baseline until 2-year follow-up with semi-structured interviews and self-report measures. Change over time and differences between the specific Cluster-C PDs were analysed with mixed regression analyses.ResultsThe outcome measures showed significant improvements for all Cluster-C PDs, with medium to large effect sizes after 2 years. A treatment dropout rate of 11.7% was found. There were some indications for differences between the Cluster-C PDs in severity at baseline, change trajectories and effectiveness of GST. ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that GST is a promising treatment for Cluster-C PDs. The following step is a randomized controlled trial to further document the (cost-)effectiveness of GST. <br/

Hereditary and acquired transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis

We describe three cases, two 70-year-old males with mainly cardiac symptoms and a 34-year-old male with gastro-intestinal and neurologic symptoms. Each patient was shown to have a distinctive type of transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR). ATTR amyloidosis is a life-threatening disease characterised by the extracellular deposition of pathogenic transthyretin (TTR). A distinction is made between hereditary ATTR (ATTRv), in case of a pathogenic TTR mutation, and the acquired wild-type ATTR (ATTRwt). The prevalence of ATTR amyloidosis is probably underestimated. The variety of symptoms means that patients often visit several specialists, resulting in an average diagnostic delay of two to three years. Because of the development of new therapeutic possibilities, early diagnosis becomes more important to allow initiation of therapy at an early stage of the disease. Family members should be screened and asymptomatic carriers should undergo follow-up.</p