In the Italian and international scenario, current design standards for seismic resistant buildings provide recommendations for the advanced analysis of several structures subjected to earthquakes, but no specific details are given for structural glass systems. There, critical design issues for glazed structures may derive from the lack of appropriate resistance but also from the limited accommodation of displacement demands. Consequently, joints and restraints can have a key role for design optimization purposes. This paper presents an energy-based analytical study and a refined Finite Element (FE) numerical analysis for a case-study glass frame, showing the potentials, limits and issues of the calculations approaches, towards the definition of preliminary design estimates for earthquake resistant glass frames. Special care is spent for the potential ductile and dissipative behaviour of structural glass frames, with some recommendations for the q-behaviour factor.
