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Experimental and Numerical Study of Window Glass Breakage with Varying Shaded Widths under Thermal Loading

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Abstract

To investigate the effect of shaded width on the breaking behavior of window glass, a series of experiments was carried out on float glass with dimension of 600 mm × 600 mm × 6 mm in an enclosed compartment under radiant heat. The shaded width of glass pane ranged from 10 mm to 50 mm with an interval of 10 mm. Experimental results showed that crack patterns of the glass pane were influenced little by the shaded width, while the average value of the first breaking time of the glass pane decreased firstly and then increased with an increase in the shaded width. The average time to the first crack with the shaded width of 20 mm was shortest in experiments and the corresponding time was 572.5 s. In addition, the finite element method was also used to simulate the process of crack initiation and single crack propagation. Temperatures measured by thermocouples in experiments were employed as thermal loads for the problem of glass breakage. The first breaking time obtained by the program was in good agreement with experimental data.

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Abbreviations

a :

Crack increment

a 0 :

Critical crack length

b :

Body force vector

B :

Empirical factor

C R :

Rayleigh wave speed

D :

Stiffness tensor

E :

Young’s modulus

F :

Nodal force vector

g :

Geometric factor

G :

Cumulative Weibull function

H :

Half-length of the window

I :

Second-order identity tensor

K :

Stiffness matrix

K I, K II, K III :

Stress intensity factors of modes I, II, and III

K Ic, K IIc :

Fracture toughness values of modes I and II

K Ieff :

Effective stress intensity factor of mode I

L :

Thickness of glass

m :

Shape parameter in Weibull distribution function

M :

Mass matrix

r :

Distance from crack tip, or radial coordinate

s :

Shaded width

t :

Time

Δt :

Time increment

T :

Transient temperature

T 0 :

Initial temperature

u :

Displacement vector

ü :

Acceleration vector

U :

Displacement vector of the finite element equation

\( {\dot{\mathbf{U}}} \) :

Velocity vector of the finite element equation

Ü :

Acceleration vector of the finite element equation

u, v, w :

Displacements in the x, y, and z directions

V :

Crack speed

x, y, z :

Coordinates

β :

Coefficient of linear expansion, or Newmark parameter

γ :

Newmark parameter

Δ:

Difference

ε :

Strain tensor

ε T :

Temperature strain tensor

θ:

Angle, or angular coordinate

θ 0 :

Angle of crack growth

κ :

Kolosov constant

ν :

Poisson’s ratio

ρ :

Density

σ :

Stress tensor

σ 0 :

Scale parameter in Weibull distribution function

σ b :

Breaking stress

σ u :

Location parameter in Weibull distribution function

avg :

Average

b :

Breakage

c :

Center

hs :

Heated shaded side

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51578524 and 51120165001), National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2012CB719700), and Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (Grant No. 2013286).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Haodong Chen, Qingsong Wang, Yu Wang, Han Zhao, Jinhua Sun & Linghui He

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center for Urban Public Safety, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Qingsong Wang & Jinhua Sun

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  1. Haodong Chen
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  3. Yu Wang
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Correspondence to Qingsong Wang.

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Chen, H., Wang, Q., Wang, Y. et al. Experimental and Numerical Study of Window Glass Breakage with Varying Shaded Widths under Thermal Loading. Fire Technol 53, 43–64 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-016-0596-0

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