Flat glass disks are thermally tempered by air-cooling with two air jets at the centre of
their surfaces. Numerical modelling and photoelasticity measurements are proposed to analyze the
distribution of the residual stresses through the glass thickness at the centre of the tempered disks.
For the modelling, glass properties dependent of the temperature are used for the conductive heat
transfer. Radiation is modelled by an improved approximation method. By taking both structural
and stress relaxations into account, the transient and residual stresses are computed along the disk
thickness. For experimentation, a complete procedure is proposed to access to the stress state in the
centre of the disks using a scattered light polariscope. The average distribution of the residual
stresses is deduced from stress profile measurements taking four radial orientations at the disk
centre into consideration. Comparison between numerical and experimental values is finally
discussed for the residual surface and half-thickness stresses at the disk centre.
