Recently, there has been a steady popularity of the use of glass products in the design of rooms, including with external glazing. Current production technologies allow you to get clean glass of absolutely any shape and size. However, no matter how beautiful it may be, this does not make it the most protected from mechanical damage. In fact, when the glass falls at least a few centimeters, it is first covered with small cracks, and then instantly crumbles. But the engineers took this moment into account, and therefore now in almost the entire facade design of the rooms a special tempered type of glass is used. What makes it so popular, and what are its characteristics?
What is it like?
According to GOST, tempered glass is a material that during production is heated to a temperature of 650-700 degrees Celsius and then sharply cooled to minimum values. Thus, due to the difference in heating, the heat treatment process, i.e. hardening, takes place. As a rule, such material is characterized by high reliability and impact resistance at the output. Experts estimate that this type of tempered glass is 4 times stronger than the one called ordinary stalinite. In addition, it is worth paying attention to the safety of its use. The fragments of this material are characterized by lower cutting properties. At the same time, when falling, ordinary stalinite breaks into hundreds of small grains of glass that stick into the skin so quickly that the pain from their presence under the skin occurs only on the following days. The fragments of tempered glass are distinguished by more blunt edges, which prevents the risk of serious injury to humans.
Dimensions
Tempered glass is produced on special technical equipment, while the dimensions of the resulting material can be as follows:
- length and width - from 200 to 3600 millimeters;
- thickness - from 4 to 19 millimeters.
Before tempering the glass, the craftsmen select the required dimensions and cut it to the desired shape if possible. Why it is impossible to process such glass after tempering? The fact is that the surface of this material along with high strength does not make it possible to make any changes in its shape. And this means that cutting and drilling the surface of the hardened part simply does not make sense. It is worth noting that it is possible to temper glass only with the help of sophisticated technical equipment. Simply heating a piece of glass on the stove and quickly lowering it into cold water will not work. Such material will simply crumble into small fragments or, at best, simply crack. Therefore, if you want to tempered glass, please contact the specialized companies that provide such services with this request.
Technical features
The temperature range of operation of such a material is from -150 to +300 degrees Celsius. And this despite the fact that stalinite can withstand a temperature drop of only 40 degrees. In this regard, an increasing number of construction companies are asking the question "how and where to temper glass for exterior glazing?"