Heat strengthened safety glazing, which falls under the category of security windows, differs from tempered glass in the size of the pieces it breaks into. Thanks to this feature, the glass remains inside its frame, without collapsing as in the case of tempered glass, and thus protects against injury. Heat strengthened glass has almost double the mechanical resistance of a simple glass pane of the same width without any thermal processing, and higher resistance to fracture thanks to the intense temperature variations (up to 100°C), which renders it impervious to thermal shock (not artificially induced).

Therefore, heat strengthened glass is a good alternative for safety glazing applications where it is used as a structural element, such as stairs, balconies, balustrades, window panes, but always in combination with laminated glass.

Heat strengthened glass is not considered as a security window, except when in combination with laminated glass. It should be noted that thermally treated glass (either heat strengthened or toughened) requires that some slots and holes conditions-restrictions (regarding their dimensions) with respect to the width of the pane are taken into consideration, since these cannot be processed following thermal treatment. For further information with respect to such conditions-restrictions, please contact VASGLASS.

In VASGLASS, the antiattack glass heat strengthening process is offered under certification (CE marked) according to the European standard EN 1863, under the brand-name VAS-HS.