The demand for safety glazing as a design element is ever-rising. In its natural state, glass is fragile, but with the adequate processing, we get security windows. Through the process of thermal toughening (tempering) it is possible to significantly optimize the mechanical properties of the glass, and more specifically to increase both the toughness (fracture propagation) and the strength (load bearing capacity) of the glass. While the natural characteristics of glass remain unaffected by the heat treatment, the resulting increased internal stresses stored in its mass lead to an increase of its mechanical resistance by 4 to 5 times that of a simple antiattack glass of the same width. Equally significant is the increase in the glass’s thermal resistance, which means increased resistance to intense temperature variations (up to 290°C), making them impervious to thermal sock (not artificially induced). Yet another feature of tempered glass is its safe fracture, which renders them security windows. More specifically, since the glass is under high surface tension, when it breaks all of the energy stored in it is released and as a result it breaks into many small and blunt shards, which pose no threat to a human’s physical integrity.

It should be noted that thermally treated attack protection glazing (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.

The properties of thermally toughened glass make it ideal for a multitude of applications requiring glasses for space protection, the most common being:

In VASGLASS, the glass thermal toughening process is offered under certification (CE marked) according to the European standard EN 12150, under the brand-name VAS-SEC.

PROTECTION FROM INJURY FROM THERMALLY TOUGHENED GLASS

Also, VASGLASS, always in compliance with the new European safety regulations, offers security windows in the market with thermally toughened glass, with yet another certification (Ce-marked), according to the European standard EN 12600 (pendulum impact test method for the classification of injury risk).

More specifically: All VAS-SEC thermally toughened antiattack glass, regardless of their emissivity coefficient class (Β1 with ε>0.25, Β2 with 0.25>ε>0.1 and Β3 with ε<0.1) are certified in accordance with the European Standard EN 12600.