Structural Response of Fire Resistance Enhanced Glass Beams Exposed to Fire

Abstract

It is evident that glass, a highly regarded building material, has already become a prominent feature in building construction, not only in the context of façades but also as a load-bearing element. Nevertheless, the use of increasingly larger glass elements in these prestigious buildings demonstrates that glass is not merely the external finish of the building. Glass beams or glass fins serve as the façade’s substructure. This means that glass must be considered in the building's fire protection concept to maintain structural integrity. However, prior research has demonstrated poor fire resistance of conventional glass beams. Therefore, a concept of an enhanced fire-resistant glass beam was developed. Conventional glass beams were encased in a fire protection system comprising fire-retardant gel and sacrificial glass panes. Their functionality was tested in fire tests. This paper presents the development of the novel fire protection system, as well as the planning, execution and evaluation of the fire tests. To check and ensure comparability and reproducibility, the experimental setup and results are compared with those reported in the literature. The results demonstrate, that the use of a proper fire protection system significantly enhances the fire resistance of mechanically loaded glass beams compared to conventional reference structures. We found an increase of fire resistance time of over 200% allowing for classification of R30.