Interest in the use of structural glass in construction is continuously rising. For this reason, soda-lime-silica glass has already been intensively studied to characterize it in such a way that numerical predictions can be made in advance. However, when exposed to high temperatures or fire, several phenomena come together, such as the formation of thermal gradients both in-plane and through-the-thickness, the susceptibility of the glass to thermal shock, its changeable material properties with temperature, etc. The combination of these phenomena makes the prediction of the behavior of glass elements at high temperatures and during fire complex, and some things still need to be investigated in more detail.
In this work, a numerical model that includes heat transfer both in-plane and through-the-thickness is presented to study the spatial temperature gradients. It illustrates the time evolution of the temperature gradients when the glass is exposed to radiant heating. In addition, experimental radiant panel tests are performed to validate this numerical heat transfer model. The combination of numerical and experimental work will be used to further investigate the processes associated with heat transfer and to draw conclusions regarding the temperature gradients leading to failure.
