Thermo-accelerated curing of transparent glass-glass bondings through in-situ heat generation in the adhesive joint

Bonding glass is challenging due to the brittle properties of the material. At the same time, it is interesting for transparent architectural applications, as the entire construction appears as a uniform surface without disturbance. Many adhesives are available for this purpose, whereby epoxy resins and polyurethanes fulfill the highest structural requirements due to their crosslinking properties. In addition, the curing of both can be accelerated by heat, so that short economic cycle times can be achieved. However, in conventional heating the entire construction element, often several meters long, has to be placed in an oven. This results again in long curing cycles, high-energy consumption and high costs. Induction or resistance methods achieve more targeted heating, but these require components at the adhesive joint that can be activated. Electrically conductive or magnetizable fillers are non-transparent and metallic substrates such as brackets or fixings do not exist on glass-glass bondings. Therefore, this study investigated heat generation on little-visible, metallic inserts and glass coatings. Different adhesives were analyzed for their accelerated heat curing properties and the resulting bond strength. A fast cured, highly transparent joint could be achieved with the combination of an epoxy resin and the resistant heating of a silver coating.