Pilkington Toughened Glass

Overview

Pilkington Toughened Glass is a safety glass up to five times stronger than ordinary glass of the same thickness. Because of its increased strength, Pilkington Toughened Glass allows architects and builders far greater scope in their use of glass in buildings. It meets worldwide safety standards for glass subjected to accidental human impact at the highest level of severity. Wherever the benefits of ordinary glass need to be combined with extra strength, safety or heat resistance, Pilkington Toughened Glass can offer a complete and proven solution.

Pilkington Toughened Safety Glass is manufactured by subjecting final size, edgeworked panes of glass to a heating and cooling treatment whereby high compressive stresses are set up at the surfaces with balancing tensile stresses in the centre. The high compressive surface stresses give the Pilkington Toughened Glass its increased strength.

The high compressive surface stresses give the glass its increased resistance to mechanical and thermal stresses. It can, however, break under extreme loads or by severe impact. When broken, toughened glass shatters into small, blunt-edged fragments, reducing the risk of personal injury.

Pilkington Heat Strengthened Glass is not a safety glass and it is approximately twice as strong as annealed glass of similar thickness. Heat strengthened glass generally fractures in a manner similar to annealed glass and tends to remain in the opening when broken. It should not be used where safety glazing is specified. It is intended for general glazing where additional strength and/or resistance to mechanical and/or thermal stress are desired.

Pilkington Toughened Glass Products that belong to Pilkington Glass range can be easily identified by the simple use of letter 'T' after the product brand name, whereas heat strenghened glass can be identified by the descriptor 'HN'.

Pilkington Toughened Glass with the 'HS' descriptor is the heat soaked form of Pilkington Toughened Glass for those applications where a reduction in spontaneous fracture is advantageous, such as structural applications, barriers and roof glazing. In this case Pilkington Toughened Glass (HS) should be specified along with the other product benefits required.

Pilkington Toughened Safety Glass provides an economical and proven solution in any areas of particular hazard where national standards or Codes of Practice specifically require the use of safety glazing material.
Pilkington Toughened Safety Glass can be used, for example, along passageways and areas of high pedestrian traffic, in doors and adjacent panels, shower and bath enclosures, balconies, barriers, staircases and other structural glazing applications. It can be used to provide uninterrupted single or double glazed cladding for the whole building. Other applications include frameless shop fronts and entrances, internal partitions, furniture, canopies gymnasiums and sports arenas.