Making your Glass Safe
When toughened glass goes through heat cycles to produce toughened glass a chemical is formed called Nickel sulfide (NS). NS will be found as an inclusion in the glass. This inclusion is very small and usually can’t be seen with the human eye.
By inspecting every inch of the glass with a magnifying glass, you will find that most toughened glass panes will have a Nickel sulfide inclusion.
With expansion and contraction of the glass due to climate conditions these inclusions may cause toughened glass to shatter.
Glass Manufacturer A
Warrant no more than 5 out of 1,000 — if heat treated
Glass Manufacturer B
Recognize that spontaneous glass breakage occurs, but does not warrant against glass breakage.
Glass Manufacturer C
References 2 studies stating spontaneous glass breakage may occur 1 out of 150–400 panes*
When toughened glass shatters, it breaks into thousands of small fragments, usually not big enough to cause serious damage. However if these small fragments fall from a distance from a multi story building in large quantities, the risk of injury or death is very serious.
UV Window Coatings have been installing 3M clear safety film to buildings all over Melbourne since 1997.
There are countless buildings that have been filmed to hold glass in place in the unfortunate circumstance of a glass pane shattering.
Recent projects include
Usually if a building starts to get a few panes shatter, there will be more to come. It’s not uncommon to see 8-15 panes shatter in the course of 24 months. That’s where we come in. We will install 3M clear safety film to the inside or outside glass.
After the film has been installed we will anchor the film to the frame by removing the glazing seal, either rubber or silicone. Structural silicone then gets installed, bonding the film to the frame to ensure the glass and frame will not fall out.
Other methods that may be used to fix the film to the frame are called batten fixing. This is a method that uses an aluminum extrusion with VHB double sided tape. Once the film has been installed it is almost undetectable and carries a manufacturers warranty of 12 years.
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319 Plummer St Port Melbourne Vic 3207 (Storage)
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