Lesson Title: Glass

Introduction

Glass is a brittle material that is weak in tension because of its non-crystalline

molecular structure. When glass is stressed beyond its strength limit, breakage
occurs immediately without warning, unlike steel and aluminium where plastic
mechanism can be formed. In spite of the structural shortcoming of glass, its use is
unavoidable since they are transparent, increased feeling of spaciousness in a room
and aesthetic and can be tailor-made in shape and colour to suit various architectural
purposes.

Types of Glass

➢ Float glass
➢ Tempered glass/toughened glass
➢ Heat strengthened glass
➢ Laminated glass
Float Glass

It is also called annealed glass. The float process consists of taking the raw
ingredients (silica, soda ash lime and other oxides) and heat to 1500℃. This
molten material then flow on to a shallow bath of molten tin, float and spread out to
form an even layer. The thickness of the glass is controlled by the speed of the flow.
As the glass flow along the tin bath, the temperature drop to 500℃ where the glass
then passes through the annealing chamber or Lehr to around 250℃ and produces
the polished parallel sheets of glass. It is relatively cheap and easily cut and form.

This type of glass is without heat treatment. It is fragile and breaks to sharp knife
like edges which can cause serious injuries.
Tempered Glass

In order to provide a larger strength and to achieve the objective that breakage will
not generate sharp pieces for hurting human, an annealed glass can be under a
heat-treating process. The common process is to first cut the glass to the desired
size and then put inside a furnace and heated uniformly to 700℃. Upon leaving the
furnace, the glass is cooled rapidly with cold air blown on to both surface. This
rapid cooling set the two outer surfaces while the internal core remain relatively hot.
The core then cooled naturally in consequence shrinks generating the compressive
force inside with the two outer tensile surfaces. The forces generated in this
process physically pull the structure to create a glass sheet of 5 times the strength of
float glass. The process is relatively low tech and hence cheap to manufactured.
On breaking, the stresses cause the glass to collapse and fragment into disc of
between 5-10mm depending on the thickness of the glass. Cannot be worked on
once formed either cut, edge polished or drilling will result in the glass breaking.
One big disadvantage for using tempered glass is the problem of spontaneous
breakage due to impurities nickel sulfide (NiS). The impurities exist in all glasses
whether annealed, tempered or heat strengthened. The quantity of impurities
depends on the batch of raw materials in which the glass is made. This impurity
NiS exists in two physical state, Alpha (unstable) and Beta (stable) in which Alpha
given time will revert back to Beta with a slight increase in volume. Since rapid
cooling and setting of outer layer create tension as the center cool slower, this
prestressing gives tempered glass its unique structural quality of up to 5 times that of
float glass. But Alpha NiS particles are dimensionally unstable expand a fraction of
a micron as it revert to Beta. For other glasses, the small amount of induced
stresses does not cause any problem. In tempered glass, even minute expansion
will imbalance the structure and the result – spontaneous breakage. NiS breakage
forms a break pattern commonly known as the ‘butterfly wings’.
There are two other important points will cause breakage: -
➢ NiS particle size are over 70 micron.
➢ It must be located within the tension outer zone of the glass.
➢
Hence, even if the NiS particles are over 70 micron; if the particle is located within
the middle portion (where the structure are in compression); the glass will not break.

Heat soak test is an effective procedure to break the glass panels containing NiS in
factory rather than after installation. In simple term, it is basically factory testing by
passing glass into an oven at temperature of 260-290℃. At such heat, it is not
enough to re-melt the glass, but in theory sufficient to accelerate the NiS paritcles
impurities to convert from Alpha to Beta hence fracturing the glass. The process
intent to break all the glass containing NiS, leaving the remaining glass to be free
from defects.

Heat soak process includes an oven of taking the glass panes through 3 phases: -

➢ Heating phase – commences with all the glass panes at ambient temperature
and concludes when the surface temperature of the last glass panes reaches
280℃.
➢ Holding phase – commences when the surface temperature of all the glass
panes has reached a temperature of 280℃. The duration of the holding phase
is 2 hours minimum. The surface temperature of the glass panes shall be
maintained in the range of 290℃±10℃ during the holding phase.
➢ Cooling phase – commences when the last glass pane to reach 280℃ has
completed its holding phase. The glass temperature shall be brought down to
ambient temperature during this phase.
Laminated Glass

It is a very common form of glass formed by bonding two or more glass panes by
interlayers like PVB or resin. The thickness of this interlayer is normally 0.38mm,
0.76mm and 1.52mm. The major problem for laminated glass is the validity of
composite action.