I would have died on the spot

[Hawkmoon]

300 foot high glass bridge in China shatters:

https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/tourist-hangs-from-shattered-glass-bridge-in-china/

Tell me again why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use glass as the walking surface of a bridge.

[Nick1911]

300 foot high glass bridge in China shatters:

https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/tourist-hangs-from-shattered-glass-bridge-in-china/

Tell me again why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use glass as the walking surface of a bridge.

Because it looks cool having a transparent surface under your feet?

Because glass has excellent compressive strength and meh tensile strength, but these are well understood properties that should allow it to be safely used to carry loads provided the engineering is done correctly?

[Hawkmoon]

Because it looks cool having a transparent surface under your feet?

Because glass has excellent compressive strength and meh tensile strength, but these are well understood properties that should allow it to be safely used to carry loads provided the engineering is done correctly?

Yeah, I know all that. It's the mode of failure that makes it a non-starter for me. Steel bends. Wood cracks. You get warnings of impending failure. Glass? It just shatters.

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Fly320s]

Looks to me like the glass panels were lifted out of their frames by the high winds, not shattered.  In either case, I would think that glass is laminated so it can't shatter.

[K Frame]

My question is... WTF were tourists doing on the damned thing in gale force winds?


" It's the mode of failure that makes it a non-starter for me. Steel bends. Wood cracks. You get warnings of impending failure. Glass? It just shatters."

To be sure, they're not sticking a flattened out drinking glass up there and calling it good. My guess is that the panels are laminated safety glass, probably several laminations.

Even if all of the glass laminations shattered at once, which is highly unlikely, the laminate binder would keep the panels in one piece, just like with a windshield.

[Hawkmoon]

To be sure, they're not sticking a flattened out drinking glass up there and calling it good. My guess is that the panels are laminated safety glass, probably several laminations.

Even if all of the glass laminations shattered at once, which is highly unlikely, the laminate binder would keep the panels in one piece, just like with a windshield.

It's more likely to be tempered glass, and I don't know if tempered glass can be laminated.

[RoadKingLarry]

Because it looks cool having a transparent surface under your feet?

Because glass has excellent compressive strength and meh tensile strength, but these are well understood properties that should allow it to be safely used to carry loads provided the engineering is done correctly?

It was made in China, what do you expect?

[K Frame]

It's more likely to be tempered glass, and I don't know if tempered glass can be laminated.

I sincerely doubt that it would be tempered glass. It's being walked on continually, and with that comes the possibility of scratches, which can dramatically affect the stability of tempered glass. And, when tempered glass fails, it fails quickly and catastrophically and would very likely drop anyone on that panel straight through.

Laminated glass would maintain a safety factor and would help prevent anyone on the panel when it breaks from plunging through.

[K Frame]

Interesting website that talks about some of the glass options...

https://blog.innovatebuildingsolutions.com/2016/06/03/create-outstanding-glass-bridge-fail/

[WLJ]

It was made in China, what do you expect?

Because the US has a perfect track record when it comes to things not falling down

[MechAg94]

Because the US has a perfect track record when it comes to things not falling down

We use a lot of Chinese made materials also.   

.....and sometimes people fly jets into them.

[Fly320s]

We use a lot of Chinese made materials also.   

.....and sometimes people fly jets into them.

Jet fuel can't melt laminated glass.

[Angel Eyes]

Perhaps the tourists thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0NJsr5m4I

Jet fuel can't melt laminated glass.

Thanks Rosie.

[MechAg94]

Jet fuel can't melt laminated glass.

[dogmush]

Why do we think it's glass?

I mena, I know the New York Post called it glass and all that, but just from a weight prospective I think it's just as likely to be a several layers of laminated polycarbinate or some such material.  A 2.54cm thick piece of glass is heavy as heck.

[Hawkmoon]

Interesting website that talks about some of the glass options...

https://blog.innovatebuildingsolutions.com/2016/06/03/create-outstanding-glass-bridge-fail/

I sit corrected. Laminated glass it is.

[Jim147]

I sit corrected. Laminated glass it is.

How many lambs did it take to make that much glass?

[TommyGunn]

Perhaps the tourists thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0NJsr5m4I



Thanks Rosie.

Now,  that's just cruel.   

[WLJ]

Perhaps the tourists thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0NJsr5m4I

Kid logic: When the glass bridge you're standing on starts cracking stomp harder.

[Bogie]

When we were doing the Chemical Group spinoff from Monsanto, one of the major products was something called Saflex.
 
Windshields. Side-laminated windows (entry resistant), and projectile-resistant glass. It was an interlayer put between two or more sheets of glass in a vacuum oven environment.
 
I saw a 1" laminated chunk with a .38 Super stuck in it...

[JN01]

Winds approaching 100 mph broke the bridge apart,

In the first place, going out for a stroll in 100 mph winds is not the brightest idea.

[K Frame]

CN Tower in Toronto has glass panels in the floor of the observation deck, which is about 1,100 feet up. It's a weird feeling walking across those panels.