Experimental Study on the Thermal Performance of Soda-Lime-Silica Glass by Radiant Panel Testing

Abstract

Assessing the fire performance of structural materials is crucial for ensuring the safety and integrity of buildings and structures. Traditionally, this assessment involves expensive and time-consuming physical fire tests. However, an alternative cost-effective approach is numerical modelling, which requires a deep understanding of heat transfer mechanisms specific to the material of interest. While numerous models exist for opaque materials, modelling glass in fire conditions presents additional complexities due to its transparency and wavelength-dependent heat transfer characteristics. This paper presents an experimental campaign employing an electrical radiant panel as the heat source to investigate the heat transfer phenomena in glass. The radiant panel consists of 21 emitters capable of producing a uniform radiative heat flux on glass specimens of different thicknesses. The experimental results allow us to derive heat transfer ratios specific to the glass material. These ratios are essential for accurate fire simulations, understanding heat transfer through glass, and quantifying the transmitted radiation through the glass, which is important for the combustible materials on the unexposed side of the glass component exposed to fire.