Full-scale evaluations on heat resistance of glass panes incorporated with water film or sprinkler in a room fire

In this study, a full-scale room (573 cm×420 cm×330 cm) fire test was developed to investigate the performance and the variations of the absorption of convection heat and the resistance of radiation by using either the water film or the closed-pendent-type sprinkler onto the non-heat-resistant fireproof glass panes. The results showed that in the initial stage of the fire, the water film could completely restrain the surface temperature of the glass, and when the fire induced the flashover and further proceeded to the intense burning, the surface temperature of the glass could still be controlled around 100 °C. Although the flow rate of the sprinkler system was 3 times of the water film system, the effective heat resistance was only a third to a half that of the water film system only. Thus, for situations where the available amount of water flow is limited, by using a layer of uniform down-flowing water film with appropriate thickness and velocity, reducing the temperature of the glass surface could be achieved effectively. The usage of the water film onto the glass pane to assure the fire insulation and fire integrity of the glass pane has been proven workable, through a series test using small-scale [Wu CW, Lin TH, Lei MY, Chung TH, Huang CH, Chiang WT. Fire test on a non-heat-resistant fireproof glass with down-flowing water film. Proceedings of the eighth international symposium on fire safety science, 2005. p. 327–39], full-scale [Wu CW, Lin TH. Fire resistance tests of a glass pane with down-flowing water film. Technical Report, Safety Technology Co., Ltd., Taiwan, ROC, 2005; based on ISO 834-1] and real-scale (this study) fire.