I. Core Advantages and Features
Extremely high mechanical strength
High impact resistance: The surface of tempered glass forms a strong compressive stress layer, making its impact resistance 3 to 5 times or more than that of ordinary annealed glass. It can effectively resist external forces such as wind pressure and impact.
High flexural strength: Tempered glass of the same thickness has a flexural strength approximately 3 to 5 times that of ordinary glass.
Outstanding thermal stability (thermal shock resistance)
Tempered glass can withstand huge temperature differences (usually over 200°C), while ordinary glass can only tolerate about 70-100°C of temperature variation. This makes it highly suitable for use in environments with significant temperature fluctuations, such as doors and windows, curtain walls, shower rooms, and oven doors, as it is less likely to crack due to thermal expansion and contraction.
Safety (Main Features)
Fragment safety:
This is the core reason why tempered glass is called "safety glass". When it is damaged, it breaks into small, blunt, honeycomb-like particles that are less likely to cause serious cuts to the human body. This is in sharp contrast to the sharp, large fragments formed when ordinary glass breaks.
Diverse specifications and strong supply capacity.
Wide range of sizes:
China's deep-processed glass enterprises can produce very large-sized tempered glass (such as super-large plates used for building curtain walls), and can also precisely process various irregular and small-sized glasses.
Complete range of products:
In addition to ordinary transparent tempered glass, we can also supply in large quantities:
Coated tempered glass (such as Low-E glass, with good energy-saving effect)
Colored glazed tempered glass (with strong decorative effect)
Laminated glass (also known as safety glass) has a higher safety level. When it breaks, the fragments adhere to the interlayer of PVB/SGP film.
Insulating glass (also known as double-glazed glass) features excellent heat insulation and soundproofing performance.
Fire-resistant tempered glass, etc.
High cost performance and strong supply chain
Thanks to a complete industrial chain (from raw materials, fuel, equipment to processing), large-scale production and fierce market competition, China's tempered glass has world-leading cost control capabilities and extremely strong price competitiveness while ensuring quality.
The supply cycle is short, which can meet the concentrated demands of large-scale projects both at home and abroad.
II. Potential Issues and Precautions
Self-Explosion (Bursting)
This is an inherent characteristic of tempered glass and is not unique to Chinese glass. However, due to the huge output, the problem is more easily observed.
The reason is that the raw materials of glass contain nickel sulfide (NiS) impurity particles. After processing, these particles will undergo volume expansion due to changes in time and temperature, causing an imbalance in internal stress within the glass and leading to sudden breakage. Currently, it is impossible to completely avoid this issue, but the Heat Soak Test (HST) can be used to preemptively trigger the self-explosion of glass with a tendency to self-break, reducing the self-breakage rate during use from approximately 3‰ to 0.1‰ to 0.3‰.
No further processing is possible.
Tempered glass cannot be cut, drilled or ground at the edges after tempering. All cutting and shaping must be completed before tempering. This places high demands on the accuracy of design and measurement.
Surface flatness issue (waviness)
During the tempering process, the glass is heated to soften and conveyed on the roller track. Sometimes, due to improper process control, slight unevenness that is visible to the naked eye (commonly known as "wave pattern" or "wind spot") may occur. High-quality manufacturers can control this issue well, but it may be more obvious in low-end products, affecting optical distortion.
The quality of the market varies greatly.
The huge market has given rise to a large number of manufacturers, with varying levels of technology and quality control standards. Some enterprises, in an effort to cut costs, use inferior raw materials or simplify production processes, resulting in products that fail to meet the standards for strength, flatness and safety.
III. Main Application Areas
Tempered glass in China is widely used in:
Construction field: doors and windows, curtain walls, skylights, canopies, guardrails, stairs, etc.
Home decoration: shower rooms, partitions, furniture countertops, cabinet doors, etc.
Household appliances industry: microwave oven doors, oven doors, refrigerator shelves, etc.
Transportation vehicles: side windows and rear windshields of cars (sunroofs and front windshields usually use safer laminated glass), high-speed rail car windows.
Screen protection glass for electronic devices such as smart phones and tablet computers (belonging to chemically tempered glass).
