Glass is a high-tech material used for various applications in all spheres of modern life.

We use it for safety, security, eye wear, solar, science, vehicles, decoration, temperature, light and sound control, but especially to modernise and beautify our environment.


Annealed / Float Glass

Annealed glass is the basic flat glass product that is the first result of the float process. It is formed by floating molten glass on a bed of molten tin. The raw materials (silica sand, calcium, oxide, soda and magnesium) are properly weighed and then mixed in specific ratio before it gets melted in a furnace at 1500° C. The molten glass then flows from the glass furnace into a bath of molten tin in a continuous ribbon. The glass, which is highly viscous (can flow easily) and the tin, also in liquid form, do not mix and the contact surface between these two materials is perfectly flat. When it leaves the bath of molten tin the glass has cooled down sufficiently to pass to an annealing chamber called a lehr. Here it is cooled at controlled temperatures, until it is at room temperature. 90% of today's flat glass is manufactured using this method.

This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat surfaces. The float glass process is also known as the Pilkington process, named after the British glass manufacturer Pilkington, which pioneered the technique (invented by Sir Alistair Pilkington) in the 1950s. It is the common glass that tends to break into large, jagged shards. It is used in some end products like double-glazed windows, for example. It is also the basic material that is turned into more advanced products through further processing such as laminating, toughening, coating, etc.


Toughened Glass

Toughened glass is treated to be far more resistant to breakage than simple float glass, and to break in a more predictable way when it does break, thus providing a major safety advantage in almost all of its applications.

Toughened glass is made from annealed glass treated with a thermal tempering process. A sheet of annealed glass is heated to above its "annealing point" of 600 °C; its surfaces are then rapidly cooled while the inner portion of the glass remains hotter. The different cooling rates between the surface and the inside of the glass produces different physical properties, resulting in compressive stresses in the surface balanced by tensile stresses in the body of the glass.

These stresses give toughened glass its increased mechanical strength. When it does break, it shatters into small, regular, typically square fragments rather than long, dangerous shards. Toughened glass has extremely broad application in products both for buildings and for automobiles and transport, as well as other areas. Car windshields and windows, glass portions of building façades, glass sliding doors, balustrading, partitions in houses and offices, shower doors, glass furniture such as table tops, and many other products typically use toughened glass.

Toughened glass panels can be manufactured to almost any shape. The glass can also be machined, with holes, bevelled edges etc. However, all machining must be carried out and edges polished prior to toughening.


Laminated Glass

Laminated glass is made of two or more layers of glass with one or more ‘interlayers’ of polymeric material bonded between the glass layers.
Laminated glass is produced using one of two methods:

Poly Vinyl Butyral (PVB) laminated glass is produced using heat and pressure to sandwich a thin layer of PVB between layers of glass. On occasion, other polymers such as Ethyl Vinyl Acetate (EVA) or Polyurethane (PU) are used. This is the most common method.

For special applications, Cast in Place (CIP) laminated glass is made by pouring a resin into the space between two sheets of glass that are held parallel and very close to each other.

Laminated glass offers many advantages. Safety and security are the best-known of these -- rather than shattering on impact, laminated glass is held together by the interlayer, reducing the safety hazard associated with shattered glass fragments, as well as, to some degree, the security risks associated with easy penetration. But the interlayer also provides a way to apply several other technologies and benefits, such as colouring, sound dampening, resistance to fire, ultraviolet filtering, and other technologies that can be embedded in or with the interlayer.

Laminated glass is used extensively in building and housing products and in the automotive and transport industries. Most building façades and most car windscreens, for example, are made with laminated glass, usually with other technologies also incorporated.


Mirrored Glass

To produce mirrored glass, a metal coating is applied to one side of the glass. The coating is generally made of silver, aluminium, gold or chrome. For simple mirrored glass, a fully reflective metal coating is applied and then sealed with a protective layer. To produce "one-way" mirrors, a much thinner metal coating is used, with no additional sealing or otherwise opaque layer.

Mirrored glass is gaining a more prominent place in architecture, for important functional reasons as well as for the aesthetic effect.


Patterned

Patterned glass is flat glass with a regular pattern or texture on the surface. The most common method for producing patterned glass is to pass heated glass (usually just after it exits the furnace where it is made) between rollers containing the negative relief of the desired pattern(s).

Patterned glass is mostly used in internal decoration and internal architecture. Today, it is typically used for functional reasons, where light but not transparency is desired, and the patterns are accordingly subtle. However, it has also at times been fashionable as a design feature in itself, in such cases often displaying more prominent patterns.