Abstract
•Critical breakage condition of coated, insulated and laminated glass was determined.•Insulated and laminated glass can survive much longer than the single ones in a fire.•Laminated glass demonstrates good capability to prevent new vent formed in fires.•Heat transfer mechanism of three different glasses was revealed and compared.
To make constructions more artistic, various new kinds of glazing are increasingly employed in building envelopes. However, when subjected to a fire, these glass façades may easily break and fall out, significantly accelerating the development of enclosure fire. Thus, it is necessary to investigate and compare their different fire performance and breakage mechanisms. In this work, a total of ten tests, including single coated, insulated and laminated glazing, were heated by a 500×500mm2 pool fire. Breakage time, glass surface and air temperature, incident heat flux and crack initiation and propagation were obtained. The critical conditions of three different kinds of glazing were determined. It was established that the insulated and laminated glass can survive longer than the single glass. The air gap and fire side glass pane was found to play a key role for the thermal resistance of ambient side pane in the insulated glazing. Although both panes of the laminated glazing broke, it could be held together by the layer of gel, effectively avoiding the formation of a new vent. Numerical simulations were performed to investigate the heat transfer process through the glazing panels and the temperatures in the glazing were predicted well. Suggestions for glass fire resistance design are proposed.