Dr. Dave explains why this type of application can often be tricky, particularly due to the large differences in thermal expansion coefficients between the glass, the steel, and the adhesive.
You don’t indicate which substrate is on the outside, and this does make a difference in the possible choice of adhesive. Epoxy adhesives were traditionally used for this application, but they should be used with care as they may be too rigid.
You need to look at so-called “shadow curing” options. Most UV-cured systems are based on acrylates and methacrylates and cure free-radically by the decomposition of a photoinitiator.
All adhesives tend to lose strength on immersion in water. Water acts in two ways on a bonded assembly: It can be absorbed into the adhesive and soften it, and it can degrade the interface between the adhesive and the bonded surfaces.
Adhesives can be classified in several ways, including their material origin (e.g., natural or synthetic) and their type of cure (e.g., physical curing such as drying or chemical curing).
Adhesive and coating systems that use ultraviolet (UV) or visible light to begin the curing are intrinsically very attractive systems to the manufacturing engineer, allowing assembly of components and then “curing on command” by exposing to the radiation.