Simulation analysis of thermal performance for vacuum glazing was conducted in this paper. The heat conduction through the support pillars and edge seal and the radiation between two glass sheets were considered. The heat conductance of residual gas in vacuum gap was ignored for a low pressure of less than 0.1Pa. Two pieces of vacuum glazing with sizes of 0.3 × 0.3 m and 1.0 × 1.0 m were simulated. In order to check the accuracy of simulations with specified mesh number, the thermal performance of a small central area (4mm×4mm) with a single pillar in the center was simulated using a graded mesh of 41×41×5 nodes. The heat transfer coefficients of this unit obtained from simulation and analytic prediction were 2.194Wm-2K-1and 2.257Wm-2K-1respectively, with a deviation of 2.79%. The three dimensional (3D) isotherms and two dimensional (2D) isotherms on the cold and hot surfaces of the specimens were also presented. For a validity of simulated results, a guarded hot box calorimeter was used to determine the experimental thermal performance of 1.0m×1.0m vacuum glazing. The overall heat transfer coefficients obtained from experiment and simulation were 2.55Wm-2K-1 and 2.47Wm-2K-1respectively, with a deviation of 3.14%.

Tensile bond strength is one of the most significant properties for structural silicone sealants used in the glass curtain walls. During the service process, aging of the silicone sealants shall be involved in comprehensive actions of environment factors, e.g. temperature, humidity, and ultraviolet light etc. In this study, artificial accelerated aging test was conducted to make clear the development of tensile bond strength, Shore hardness and elongation. The test results show that: (i) the specimens under damp-heat test have more degeneration than specimens under humidity-freeze test; (ii) the environment of high temperature and high humidity leads to the change of tensile bond, Shore hardness, elongation, and results in interfacial failure of samples.

A simple and new method was introduced to measure the elastic modulus and strength of glass and brittle ceramic materials at different temperatures by compressing a notch ring specimen. For a notch ring specimen, the maximum tensile stress is generated in the outside of the testing sample at half of the height under an applied load. During the elastic deformation range, the elastic modulus can be calculated from the slope of loading curve and sample size. The fractured strength is derived by the critical load when the testing sample is failed. To verify the feasibility and reliability of this suggested method, typical brittle materials, including glass, coarse Al2O3 and fine ZrO2 ceramic, were used as the testing samples. The measured elastic modulus and strength obtained from this method at room temperature to 1300 oC agreed well with those from conventional testing methods.

The purpose of this paper is to study the durability and performance of photovoltaic glass components in salt spray environments. So it can be founed that a reasonable solution to increase the life of PV glass and to ensure the continuity of its performance. The PVB film was used for the comparison and performance analysis of the salt spray treatment of salt water at one week and two weeks. The PVB film was tested for the light transmission performance and other mechanical properties changes of PVB film. It was shown that the strength of the PV module sample after one week of salt spray treatment is 26.48508MPa, and the strength of the sample after two weeks of salt spray treatment of the PV module is 13.35496MPa. The direct sunlight transmittance ratio of A groups (300 ~ 2500nm) is 94.50. Direct sunlight transmission ratio of B groups (300 ~ 2500nm) is 92.30. The results show that the light transmission performance of the PV module after salt spray cycle is reduced by 2.3%, and the strength is obviously decreased by 49.57%.

In order to understand the carrying capacity and deformation characteristics of vacuum glazing, experimental and theoretical research were carried out on load bearing capacity of four sides supported vacuum glazing, the load-displacement and load-stress curves of the test samples under uniform load were obtained. The experimental result indicated that under the test samples have the same thickness, the capacity of resisting wind load of the vacuum glazing is not so strong as common glass plate. To design methods of the vacuum glazing plate, one of those is to calculate the stresses and the deflection with the equivalent thickness as an integral model. The equivalent thickness coefficient of the vacuum glazing is about 0.85~0.9, and the magnitudes of the equivalent thickness coefficient of the vacuum glazing is decreases with increasing of the glass thickness, but not been influenced by the length and width dimensions of the glass plate. Take into account the influence of long term tensile stresses in vacuum glazing due to atmospheric pressure on the glass strength, the calculation formula of resistance to wind load for the vacuum glazing was given.