moldable transparent sheet material 2

[maxvl]

I am designing a waiting booth with a curved "back plate" of 4 meters wide and 2.8 meters high attached to a frame on all four sides. According to my calculations, Polycarbonate or Acrylic is too weak to withstand strong wind without an additional vertical beam halfway. Glass might be suitable, but I'm quite shure a curved glass panel of this size would be too expensive. I'd like my material to be transparent and I was thinking about extruding cables with my sheet material, to improve its strength, is this possible and can the panel be curved thermically afterwards.

Also PC is not as scratch resistant as glass but most coatings are quite expensive and meant for small device etc. Are there cheaper solutions?

Any suggestions or ideas are helpful,


Max

PS. I'm a designer and no expert on these subjects, so excuse me if my questions seem strange.

 

[rstupplebeen]

If you curve the PC in 2 directions instead of 1 you might be able to avoid the use of ribs. Think of a hollow hemisphere of material vs a sheet. A simple FEA could prove if this get's you close to your desired stiffness and strength. Many surface coatings are dip or spray coated and therefore should be able to be applied to a larger structure, not sure about the cost though. I hope this helps.

Rob Stupplebeen

 

[PanelGuy]

search for "panelite express" for an interesting idea.