1999011 PC Title: Fixing to support safety glass sheets Description This invention relates to a fixing to support safety glass sheets according to the generic part of claim 1. In this case, the safety glass sheets consist of at least two glass panes, which are positively and non-positively bonded to each other by means of a separating respectively connecting foil. On the one side the fixing is provided with a holding device locatable at a building and on the other side it presents a device, including flanges, penetrating the glass pane, which flanges simultaneously hold the glass panes. An arrangement is described in DE 195 19 527 Al where a girder, equipped with the holding device fixed to the structure, is supported at a clamping element inside the structure. In this case, the support is realised by means of a girder's mounting head of a clamping element elastically resiliently supported in the axis' direction of the girder, whereby the mounting head additionally is supported with a lateral play in a mounting chamber. The displacement of the girder respectively of the mounting head parallel to the plane of the glass pane under the influence of wind pressure is herewith made possible. Here, the elastic resiliency of the mounting head is accomplished through disk springs or through permanent elastic material. This permanent elastic material or the disk springs provide a continuous restoring force acting on the girder respectively on the glass pane like a positioning of the girder. As a final consequence, tension is introduced into the glass sheet, whereby important tolerances, between the boreholes in the glass pane and the connection point at the holding device fixed to the structure, can not be compensated. Moreover an arrangement has been published by DE 44 00 979 Al, where the locating bearing inside the structure presents a ball-shaped surface on the envelope surface oriented towards the holding device, at which ball-shaped surface is located a compensating part with complementary spherical calotte surface. The clamping element is provided with a through borehole for a reception of the clamp screw coupling the clamping elements and with a holding screw penetrating a liner and the compensating part and engaging into the clamping element. Said arrangement can certainly compensate building tolerances between the borehole in the glass pane and a substructure, however a flexible elastic support for the glass panes at the holding device is not provided, once assembly is completed. DE 44 45 724 Al describes a similar device, where the clamping element inside the structure presents a ball-shaped surface at its envelope surface oriented towards the holding device, at which ball-shaped surface abuts a pivoting bearing of a retaining part's complement surface. The pivoting bearing is held with lateral play in a union nut. Once assembly is completed, here again, no relative motion of the glass pane with regard to the attachment part is possible. When attaching glass sheets, especially safety glass sheets, the same fault is always committed in that once assembly is completed, the glass panes have no chance to successfully absorb forces affecting them, like thermal stress, wind pressure, etc. Although glass has got certain elasticity, the limits are simply inherent in the material glass. Due to the fact as disclosed in the aforementioned state-of-the-art, that these glass sheets are tightly fastened, destruction is inevitable when a certain load level is reached. This destruction is caused by rigidity, which leaves no room to adapt. When considering elasticity of a glass sheet, this implies at the same time that forces can be neutralised. Therefore it is to say, freedom (to move) means adaptation. This is especially applicable to safety glass sheets, which are mounted in areas, where in case of overhead glazing, no safety device is installed. However, in these areas so-called laminated safety glass (VSG) is used, presenting between the individual glass panes so called separating respectively connecting foils. Such laminated safety glass sheets are produced in a way that the individual glass panes are provided initially with the required boreholes and the separating respectively connecting foil is applied subsequently during a manufacturing process. Production tolerances will forcibly occur during the process, which are also of the kind that the boreholes of two adjoining glass panes, normally lying one upon the other, are not aligned in any case. Moreover, a fire-rated glass panel is known from DE 39 18 158 C1 presenting a metal frame with surrounding groove, wherein a glass pane is fastened by means of a compensating adapter. The compensating adapter itself presents two expanded gridded stripes glued onto the edge area of the glass pane, which stripes'projections engage in the groove, whereby a non-metallic spacer in form of a cleat is arranged between the projections. The compensating adapter gurantees that, in the event of fire, between the large glass pane area and the furthermore prevents from building up negative effects due to different mechanical stress in case of thermal extension in the metal frame and in the glass pane. The object of the invention is to attach safety glass sheets in a way that on the one hand no tension is produced during assembly within the glass sheets and that on the other hand after mounting, the safety glass sheets present a certain freedom and thus adaptation at their point of fixation and simultaneously offer a possibility to realise for example an overhead glazing without additional safety-relevant devices. The problem is solved according to the characteristic of patent claim 1. Further features of the invention are characterised by the sub-claims. To secure the glass panes, an invisible retention security is provided, which is realised by means of the separating respectively connecting foil in combination with the used single-point fixings. Simultaneously a permanent elastic medium is sandwiched between the fixing and the glass panes allowing tension-free mounting and subsequent mobility, thus elasticity for the fastened glass panes. Due to the fact that the separating respectively connecting foil is employed as supporting structure, simultaneously the safety glass sheets are provided with an invisible safety device preventing from destruction and thus from falling down. The single-point fixings are therefore designed in a way that they tightly fasten the separating respectively connecting foil in their clamping range center and simultaneously, thanks to the utilisation of the permanent elastic medium, do not deprive the safety glass sheet of its freedom of motion. With the highly sensible safety glass sheets, for this purpose, a reinforced separating respectively connecting foil can be put to use in the borehole area. The reinforcement can be achieved for example through appropriate reticular material provided in the foil, for example kevlar or carbon fibres, which may radiate around a single-point fixing.
Fastening the separating respectively connecting foil requires providing larger boreholes in the safety glass sheets. As already aforementioned, these boreholes are drilled prior to the process of bonding the individual glass panes by means of the separating respectively connecting foil. Therefore the separating respectively connecting foil must extend out into the area of the borehole. This can either be realised by means of one continuous foil, whereby in this case, subsequently to the connection of the glass panes to each other, a borehole has to be punched out later, which will have a smaller diameter, or it is also possible to include punched boreholes in the foils prior to the connection process of the glass panes. To reinforce the mounting area, for example just the aforementioned materials can be used. Moreover, it is possible to use in the separating respectively connecting foil's punched area for example an eyelet, which is positively and non-positively bonded to the connecting foil. This improves power transmission between the foil and the fixing. On the one hand the fixing can thus directly fasten the foil, respectively the eyelet which has been inserted, is fastened by the fixing. As the fixings are preferably executed as single-point fixings such that they consist of at least two simple pivoting parts, which can be screwed into each other. In this case, the two parts present a clamping range built by clamping surfaces which are plane. Between these clamping surfaces, the protruding separating respectively connecting foil or the eyelet is then positively and non-positively connected to the fixing. This procedure is also applicable with multilayer safety glass sheets. In such case, for example with a safety glass sheet composed of three panes, so-called spacing rings are used for the middle pane, which ring's height is executed correspondingly to the thickness of the middle glass pane. In this case, two foils extend out into the borehole, which on the one side are spaced by the spacing ring, and on the other side the screwing of the two fixing parts on the one hand tightly positively and non-positively fastens the spacing ring and on the other hand the separating and connecting foil. The aforementioned eyelets can also be put to use with multilayer safety glass sheets, thus then simultaneously embracing the spacing ring. Both fixing parts, which are screwed into each other, respectively present flanges, overlapping the boreholes' edges in the safety glass sheet. Therefore a dimensional matching is necessary between the fixing and the boreholes provided within the safety glass sheets, in order to guarantee the elastic fastening of the glass pane. This is achieved by a so-called permanent elastic medium introduced between the fixing parts' flanges and the glass panes' edges and the boreholes. This permanent elastic medium may consist for example of rubber, silicone, etc. This solid, nevertheless elastic mounting provides neutralisation of forces for the safety glass sheets, considerably reducing the danger of breakage for such safety glass sheets and simultaneously, in case of breakage of the safety glass sheets, supplying moreover a retention security, which is not visible from outside. Such fixings can be mounted to all kind of substructure and moreover they can be produced without any problem from stainless steel respectively from light metal. The invention is further explained on the basis of different embodiment examples, which are diagrammatically represented in the drawings. It shows: Figure 1: a sectional drawing of a connection portion for a safety glass sheet made from two glass panes in overhead mounting. Figure 2: A safety glass sheet composed of three individual glass panes with a single point fixing. Figure 3: A section taken from the borehole area of a safety glass sheet with mounted eyelet. Figure 4: Like figure 3, however with a safety glass sheet composed of three individual panes. The safety glass sheet partially represented in figure 1 is composed of glass pane 2 and 3, which in a corresponding production procedure are positively and non-positively bonded to each other by means of a separating respectively connecting foil identified by the numeral 1. In this case the separating respectively connecting foil 1 extends out into a borehole 30 in the glass pane. The single-point fixing and thus the glass pane are mounted for example at a presumed ceiling connection 11 via a single-point fixing by means of an attachment bolt 5 via a thread 12. In this case, the single-point fixing consists of a frontal fixing part 13 and of an internal fixing part 14. Both fixing parts 13 and 14 are screwed onto each other by means of a thread 7. The attachment bolt 5 penetrates them both. When screwing together the fixings parts 13 and 14, the clamping areas 22, 24 join each other, whereby they simultaneously fasten between them the separating respectively connecting foil 1. By tightening the separating respectively connecting foil I between the fixing parts 13 and 14, a retention security is realised for the glass panes 2 and 3. In this case, the fixing parts 13 and 14 present flanges 9 and 4 partially overlapping the exterior glass surfaces 15 and 16 On the one hand, the flanges 4 and 9 cover up the area of the borehole 30 within the glass panes 2, 3 and on the other hand the flanges 4, 9 stretch out over the glass panes 2, 3. A permanent elastic medium in form of an insert 6, 8 has been introduced between the exterior surfaces 15, 16 of the glass panes and the flanges 4, 9 with the locating faces 17, 18, thus occupying the free space within the borehole 30 of the glass panes 2, 3 and the fixing parts 13, 14. This space can be adapted to the loads theses safety glass sheets are susceptible to withstand. However it is obvious that an invisible retention security has been achieved for the safety glass sheet by fastening the separating and connecting foil 1 between the fixing parts 13, 14, and simultaneously a fastening of the safety glass sheet is realised to a certain degree by the fact that the safety glass sheets can adapt to the exterior influences and a neutralisation of forces in case of occurring exterior loads is given. This is also evident from the embodiment example in figure 2, where analogously to figure 1 two fixing parts 20, 26 are connected to each other via a thread 25. The fixing part 20 presents a borehole 28 centrally arranged within the fixing part 20. The attachment bolt 29, which head disappears in a pocket boring 27, is introduced into the borehole 28. This fixing means can be attached to a substructure via a connecting surface 19 in connection with the attachment bolt 29, once the fixing part 26 has been screwed onto the thread 25.
Analogously to the fixing parts 13, 14, the fixing parts 20, 26 likewise present clamping surfaces 22 and 24. Due to the fact that this embodiment example represents a safety glass sheet composed of the glass panes 2, 3 and 21, in this case, there are two separating respectively connecting foils. This separating respectively connecting foil 1 also stretches out into the area of the borehole 30 within the safety glass sheet and thus can be fastened between the clamping areas 22, 24. Now in this case a spacing ring 23, which has been introduced between the two foils, is necessary to bridge the thickness of the glass panes' 3 distance. According to this, both fixing parts 20, 26 via the thread 25 can then positively and non positively connect to each other both separating and connecting foils with the sandwiched spacing ring 23. Again in this embodiment example there are locating faces 17, 18 at the fixing parts 20, 26 guaranteeing that there is a part protruding the exterior surfaces of the glass pane 2 and 21. In this area of the locating faces 17, 18 and the borehole 30 likewise an insert 6, 8 made from permanent elastic material is mounted. Therefore also this attachment type for a safety glass sheet, composed of several individual panes with a retention security and a device to guarantee neutralisation of forces for affecting loads, can be realised. In the embodiment example of figure 3, only the section of the glass panes 2, 3 with interposed separating respectively connecting foil is represented. The separating respectively connecting foil 1 here presents a reinforcement 34 in its border area, which can be realised for example reticular or radiating by means of tearing-resistant material. This tearing-resistant material can include or be composed for example of kevlar, glass fibres or carbon. The perimeter of the separating respectively connecting foil 1 with its reinforcement 34 extending out into the area of the borehole 30 is moreover equipped with an eyelet 35. By this means, a better adherence and a better positioning are achieved and thus an improved clamping of the separating and connecting foil 1 between the above-described fixing parts. The embodiment example in figure 4 is illustrated analogous to the embodiment example in figure 3, with the exception that here again there are three glass panes 2, 3 and 21, which are positively and non-positively bonded by means of the separating and connecting foils 1. Especially with multilayer safety glass sheets, it is difficult to align the boreholes 30, 31, 32 of the individual glass panes, after the glass panes are bonded to each other during the manufacturing process. For this reason it will be required during the production process, the boreholes 30, 31, 32 be as important as to guarantee a secure tightening and thus fastening of the separating and connecting foils 1 with the fixing parts 13, 14, 20, 26. Likewise in this embodiment example, the distance of the glass pane 3 has been bridged by a spacing ring 23, whereby simultaneously an eyelet 33 bridges the separating and connecting foils 1 with the interposed spacing ring 23.
References 1 Separating respectively connecting foil 2 Glass pane 3 Glass pane 4 Flange 5 Attachment bolt 6 Insert 7 Thread 8 Insert 9 Flange 11 Ceiling connection 12 Thread 13 Fixing part 14 Fixing part 15 Exterior glass surface outside 16 Exterior glass surface inside 17 Locating face 18 Locating face 19 Connecting surface 20 Fixing part 21 Glass pane 22 Clamping area 23 Spacing ring 24 Clamping area 25 Thread 26 Fixing part 27 Pocket boring 28 Borehole 29 Attachment bolt 30 Glass pane borehole 31 Glass pane borehole 32 Glass pane borehole 33 Eyelet 34 Reinforcement 35 Eyelet