Abstract

A modified pump-out technique, incorporating a novel pump-out hole sealing process, has been developed that enables a high level of vacuum to be achieved between the panes of a vacuum glazing. The modified pump-out method provides several potential opportunities for the fabrication of a vacuum glazing with improved thermal performance. In particular, improved flexibility for production of a wide range of glazing sizes may allow a lower cost of manufacture to be achieved by avoiding the expense of a high vacuum oven which would otherwise be required for commercial production of high performance, large-scale vacuum glazings. The thermal performance of the vacuum glazing fabricated using the pump-out technique was characterized using a guarded hotbox calorimeter and theoretically analyzed using a finite volume model. The excellent experimentally determined thermal performance of the fabricated vacuum glazing was in good agreement with that predicted theoretically. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.