The Heat-soak Test: It is not the Standard - But the Calibration That it is all About

Jean-Christophe Elluin, Dr. Andreas Kasper, Francis Serruys

CEN/TC 129 has presented its first draft of the "Heat soaked thermally toughened soda lime silicate safety glass" standard. Many years of research and testing have led to a well-defined heat soak process. The following step is to ensure that the ovens used for the heat soak process are designed in such a way that all the glass in the oven has been submitted to the time/temperature cycle as defined in the draft standard. Moreover, this should be the case for any loading of glass up to the maximum load to which the heat soak oven has been designed for.

This paper will give more background information about the calibration test of the heat soak oven, which is described in the draft European standard. It will also be explained how a calibration test can be done in practice so that one can easily interpret the results of the calibration test. It is very important for the reliability of the prescribed heat soak process that the heat soak ovens are well performing wherever the glass is placed in the heat soak oven.

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