The Significance of Laminated Auto Glass & Future Applications

Laminated glass is the type of glass used to make windshields. The rear and side windows, on the other hand, are made of tempered glass. So, the question arises: why are different types of glass necessary?

Glass is tempered using the thermal or chemical treatment process. The thermal treatment process involves heating up the glass to a specific temperature and then cooling it down rapidly. This makes the outer layer harder than the inner layer while making the glass stronger physically and thermally.

Thermal treatment also causes imbalances in the internal stresses of the tempered glass. This is the reason why tempered glass shatters into small granular chunks that are not as harmful as shards of glass.

Laminated glass on the other hand is usually made of three layers; the outer layers are often tempered glass while the central layer is a resin known as PVB (PolyVinyl Butyral). The central layer acts like an adhesive and holds the glass layers together.

When an object hits the outermost layer, the outer layer may crack although the windshield will continue to hold together. If the object impacts with enough force it may pierce through the windshield, but even so the windshield will not shatter into pieces.

This aspect of laminated glass is very useful in car crashes, collisions or accidents of any nature as most objects will not be able to pass through the laminated windshield due to its high strength. Additionally, the windshield will not break into fragments that may injure the driver or passengers when an object hits the windshield.

Additional materials can be added to laminated windshields to provide greater protection from solar radiation (ultraviolet or infrared radiation) or to improve the strength of radio, cell phone and GPS signals.

HUD (Heads-Up Display) is a technology that projects information such as the speedometer, odometer, fuel gauge, and route navigation onto a laminated windscreen. Another benefit of using laminated auto glass is that the PVB layer provides noise reduction.

There is, however, at least one downside to using laminated auto glass. It is much easier for people trapped in cars to break through tempered glass as opposed to laminated glass. This can be critical in situations where it is urgent to escape the car and the vehicle’s occupants are injured or weak.

Conversely, this aspect is a bonus when it comes to security as it makes it more difficult for thieves to break through the car’s windows. It can take up to ten times the amount of time required to break through laminated glass as compared to tempered glass.

All things considered, the safety of automobile might be much improved if all the windows used were made of laminated glass as opposed to tempered glass. This would be an ideal solution if a method to quickly break through auto glass from the inside can be found.

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