Strength of lens material

On May 15th 1971, the FDA published in the Federal Register a statement of policy
concerning impact resistant lenses. The policy stated that all lenses had to be impact resistant
by February 1972. The FDA policy gives the practitioner the option of ordering ‘heat treated
glass lenses plastic lenses, laminated glass lenses or glass lenses made impact resistant by
other means and states that all such lenses must be capable of withstanding impact of the
drop ball test.

Drop ball test

A 5/8-inch steel ball weighing approx. 0.56 ounce is dropped from a height of 50 inch upon
the horizontal upper surface of the lens. The ball should strike within a 5/8-inch diameter
circle located at the geometrical center of the lens. To pass the test the lens must not fracture.
Fracture means that the lens cracks, through its entire thickness and across an entire diameter,
into two or more pieces or that the lens material visible to the naked eye becomes detached.
The four mechanisms of fracture with Figs:

The strength of glass

Glass has an extremely high theoretical tensile strength in excess 4,000,000 pounds/sq inch.
Unlike metal, glass does not exhibit ductility, glass is so brittle that it displays virtually no
plastic deformation before fracturing. The difference between the theoretical and actual
tensile strength of glass is thought to be caused by flaws in the glass materials. The flaws
may be either intrinsic or acquired. Intrinsic flaws may result from slight material
inhomogeneities at the time of manufacture or from residual stress during an improper
annealing process; acquired flaws occur in the form of minute surface and edge imperfection
often known as Griffith flaws and result from grinding, polishing, or edge operations or from
handling during the process. The surface and edge flaws are the primary contributors to
reduced impact resistance of ophthalmic lens materials. Hence, surface and edge quality of
ophthalmic lens materials largely control impact resistance.

Methods of tempering glass lenses:

1. Thermal (Air) tempering: The Prince Rupert drop: is an interesting method that
demonstrates the strength of thermally tempered glass. The Prince Rupert drop is
created by dropping a bit of molten glass into a container of cold water so that the
drop is cooled with drastic suddenness. This action produces a pear shaped drop of
glass with long tapering tail. The glass is extremely hard on its surface and the body
of the drop will withstand a great impact; but if the tip of the tail is broken or
scratched the entire drop explodes into many fragments. In thermal tempering, the
finished lens must be heated to a temperature near the softening point about 650*C
and then rapidly cooled by a blast of cold air on both surfaces. The heating process
causes the glass to expand, and the subsequent rapid cooling causes the surface to
quickly become rigid while the interior mass of the lens is still slightly plastic. As the
interior mass of the lens cools, it contracts and exerts tension on resisting rigid surface
volume. When reaching rooming temperature, the surface is under compression and
the central portion of the lens is under tension. The layer of compression at the
 surface of the lens may be compared to the rim of a bicycle wheel. Spokes of the
wheel has to be tightened, so as to place the spoke in just the right degree of tension.
Careful control of heating time and temperature is required for air tempering. Proper
heating produces a compression layer, which minimally distorts the lens surfaces.
Over heating causes warping of the surfaces and under heating leads to insufficient
compression. Compression of the surface with resulting tension of the internal
portions produces birefringence or double refraction of the lens. If heat-tempered lens
is placed between two light polarizing filters oriented at right angle to each other
(polariscope) the birefringence patterns are readily visible known as Maltese pattern.
Such pattern indicates that the lens has been tempered thermally but unfortunately
does not indicate its quality.
The procedure for the toughening of glass by heating and cooling was developed
during the seventh century concurrently with the development of similar procedures
for the manufacture of steel armor plate.

2. Chemical tempering
In 1890, Tegemeir observed that a large stress could be generated in the surface of a
glass by exposure to molten potassium or lithium salts. In 1965, Weber was issued a
patent for chemical strengthening of lenses by ion exchange injection in which large
ions are exchanged for smaller ones below the strain temperature. In this process the
surface of the lens is put into compression as with thermal, but at a considerably
lower temperature. The compression layer is created by exchanging small ions present
in the glass with larger ions from a molten salt bath in which the lens is processed, as
shown in the Fig: The crowding of a large ion into a network site formerly occupied
by a smaller ion causes a stress on the adjacent network is stable. The stuffing action
and the resultant stress on the rigid network produces the compressive stress built into
the surface of the glass. Therefore, by the use of this process, a batch of finished
lenses is “cooked” in the molten bath for a period of about 16hrs during which large
ions in the bath replace the smaller ions in the glass. The amount of ion exchange is
proportional to the square root of the time and depends also on the temperature.
Because of the lower temperature, there is less chance of lens warpage, and
irregularities do not occur as with heat tempering. Resurfacing and re-edging are
possible with chemically tempered lenses, but not with heat tempered lenses. After
resurfacing and re-edging however, the lenses should once again be subjected to
tempering process. These lenses are two-three times more impact resistant.