Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

This paper investigates the area of window fallout behaviour of 4 mm and 6 mm thick single glazed ordinary float type glass exposed to a constant radiant heat. Regular rubber beadings and non-standard ceramic fibre beadings were used to mount the 525 mm square glass samples in commercial aluminium window frames. A total of 117 experiments were carried out where the area of glass fallout was recorded as a function of time. The average heat fluxes which the glass samples were exposed to ranged from 13 kW/m² to 58 kW/m². The lowest heat flux that is needed for fallout occurrence is found to be 20 kW/m² for 4 mm thick glass and 28 kW/m² for 6 mm thick glass. The fallout behaviour of glass was quantified with an exponential distribution function and a probabilistic area of glass fallout prediction model for 4 mm and 6 mm thick glass is developed from the experimental results.