Heat-Strengthened Glass
IntroductionHeat-Strengthened Glass, which is widely used in the construction industry, differs from tempered glass by its properties and it's manufacturing process. The heat-strengthening process is similar to that of tempered glass but with lower levels of surface compression that meets the requirements of ASTM (Americian Standards for Testing & Materials) C1048. The break pattern varies with the level of surface compression. The main difference is the cooling pressure used. HS has a breaking resis-tance of approximately twice as high as annealed glass. -HS breaks into large pieces and does not crumble into small fragments like tempered glass. It allows the glass to remain in the window frame as the weight of the broken glass on its neighbouring pieces support each other in the frame. Therefore, -HS is often used in facades.
HS provides necessary resistance to thermal stress associated with high performance glazing materials such as tinted glass, reflective glass and Low-E glass in insulating units or spandrels. When producing heat-strengthened laminated glass as compared to tempered laminated glass, heat-strengthened glass allows the interlayer of laminated glass to adhere more evenly because of a flatter finish surface.HS with its flatter surface also results in the facade having less optical distortion. In addition to all the benefits mentioned, the probability of nickel sulphide induced spontaneous breakage is practically non- existent in heat-strengthened glass.
However, there are many applications where heat-strengthened glass is not suitable. For example, where human impact safety, higher strength or fire breakout panels are required, fully tempered glass is still the only option.
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