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Float Glass
Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal of a low melting point, typically tin, although lead was used for the process in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and a very flat surface. The float glass process is also known as the Pilkington process, named after the British glass manufacturer Pilkington, which pioneered the technique in the 1950s at their production site in St Helens, Merseyside. Modern windows are usually made from float glass, though Corning Incorporated uses the overflow downdraw method. Most float glass is soda–lime glass, although relatively minor quantities of specialty borosilicate and flat panel display glass are also produced using the float glass process. History Until the 16th century, window glass or other flat glass was generally cut from large discs (or rondels) of crown glass. Larger sheets of glass were made by blowing large cylinders which were cut open and flattened, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borosilicate
Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with silicon dioxide, silica and boron trioxide as the main glass-forming constituents. Borosilicate glasses are known for having very low coefficient of thermal expansion, coefficients of thermal expansion (≈3 × 10−6 K−1 at 20 °C), making them more resistant to thermal shock than any other common glass. Such glass is subjected to less thermal stress and can withstand temperature differentials without Thermal fracturing in glass, fracturing of about . It is commonly used for the construction of reagent bottles and Laboratory flask, flasks, as well as lighting, electronics, and cookware. For many other applications, soda-lime glass is more common. Borosilicate glass is sold under various trade names, including Borosil, Duran (glass), Duran, Pyrex, Glassco, Supertek, Suprax, Simax, Bellco, Marinex (Brazil), BSA 60, BSC 51 (by NIPRO), Heatex, Endural, Schott_AG, Schott, Refmex GL Glass, Refmex, Kimax, Gemstone Well, United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glass
Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window panes, tableware, and optics. Some common objects made of glass are named after the material, e.g., a Tumbler (glass), "glass" for drinking, "glasses" for vision correction, and a "magnifying glass". Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of the Melting, molten form. Some glasses such as volcanic glass are naturally occurring, and obsidian has been used to make arrowheads and knives since the Stone Age. Archaeological evidence suggests glassmaking dates back to at least 3600 BC in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Egypt, or Syria. The earliest known glass objects were beads, perhaps created accidentally during metalworking or the production of faience, which is a form of pottery using lead glazes. Due to its ease of formability int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alastair Pilkington
Sir Lionel Alexander Bethune Pilkington (7 January 1920 – 5 May 1995), known as Sir Alastair Pilkington, was a British engineer and businessman who invented and perfected the float glass process for commercial manufacturing of plate glass. Early life Born on 7 January 1920 in Calcutta, India, he was the son of Colonel Lionel George Pilkington MC and his wife Evelyn Carnegie Bethune, sister of Sir Alexander Maitland Sharp Bethune, 10th Baronet. He was educated at Sherborne School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Joining the Royal Artillery, he was captured in the Battle of Crete and spent four years as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany. Returning to university, he obtained a degree in mechanical science, followed in 1947 by a job as technical officer with the glass manufacturers Pilkington Brothers. He was not related to the Pilkington family which then controlled the business. Business career In 1952 Pilking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, being mainly deposited by meteorites in its metallic state. Extracting usable metal from iron ores requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching , about 500 °C (900 °F) higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BC and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys – in some regions, only around 1200 BC. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In the modern world, iron alloys, such as steel, stainless steel, cast iron and special steels, are by far the most common industrial metals, due to their mechan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Bessemer
Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years. He also played a significant role in establishing the town of Sheffield, nicknamed ‘Steel City’, as a major industrial centre. Bessemer had been trying to reduce the cost of steel-making for military ordnance, and developed his system for blowing air through molten pig iron to remove the impurities. This made steel easier, quicker and cheaper to manufacture, and revolutionised structural engineering. One of the most significant inventors of the Second Industrial Revolution, Bessemer also made at least 128 other inventions in the fields of iron, steel and glass. Unlike many inventors, he managed to bring his own projects to fruition and profited financially from their success. He was knighted for his contribution to science in 1879, and in the same year w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cylinder Method
Cylinder blown sheet is a type of hand- blown window glass. It is created with a similar process to broad sheet, but with the use of larger cylinders. In this manufacturing process glass is blown into a cylindrical shape by a glass blower. The ends of the cylinder are cut off and a cut is made down the side of the cylinder. The cut cylinder is then placed in an oven where the cylinder unrolls into a flat glass sheet. Blenko Glass Company used this method to make flat glass during the 20th century, but it used a process patented by William Blenko that used molds for the cylinder to enable consistency in the size of the glass. In Blenko's case, slight imperfections were desired for the purpose of giving the flat glass the appearance of antique glass. The standard (non-Blenko) cylinder method caused surface damages on the glass due to the flattening and moving, and the sheet therefore had to be ground and polished. In 1839 the Chance Brothers invented the patent plate process where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer''. A '' lampworker'' (often also called a glassblower or glassworker) manipulates glass with the use of a torch on a smaller scale, such as in producing precision laboratory glassware out of borosilicate glass. Technology Principles As a novel glass forming technique created in the middle of the 1st century BC, glassblowing exploited a working property of glass that was previously unknown to glassworkers; inflation, which is the expansion of a molten blob of glass by introducing a small amount of air into it. That is based on the liquid structure of glass where the atoms are held together by strong chemical bonds in a disordered and random network,Frank, S 1982. Glass and Archaeology. Academic Press: London. Freestone, I. (1991). "Looking into Glass". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crown Glass (window)
Crown glass was an early type of window glass. In this process, glass was blown into a "crown" or hollow globe. This was then transferred from the blowpipe to a punty and then flattened by reheating and spinning out the bowl-shaped piece of glass (bullion) into a flat disk by centrifugal force, up to 5 or 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 metres) in diameter. The glass was then cut to the size required. The thinnest glass was in a band at the edge of the disk, with the glass becoming thicker and more opaque toward the center. Known as a bullseye, the thicker center area around the pontil mark was used for less expensive windows. To fill large window spaces with the best glass, many small diamond shapes were cut from the edge of the disk, and then some might be halved into triangles. These were mounted in a lead lattice work and fitted into the window frame. Crown glass was one of the two most common processes for making window glass until the 19th century. The other was blown plate. Crown ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flat Glass
Plate glass, flat glass or sheet glass is a type of glass, initially produced in plane form, commonly used for windows, glass doors, transparent walls, and windscreens. For modern architectural and automotive applications, the flat glass is sometimes bent after production of the plane sheet. Flat glass stands in contrast to ''container glass'' (used for bottles, jars, cups) and ''glass fibre'' (used for thermal insulation, in fibreglass composites, and for Optical fibre, optical communication). Flat glass has a higher magnesium oxide and sodium oxide content than container glass, and a lower silica, calcium oxide, and aluminium oxide content."High temperature glass melt property database for process modeling"; Eds.: Thomas P. Seward III and Terese Vascott; The American Ceramic Society, Westerville, Ohio, 2005, From the lower soluble oxide content comes the better chemical durability of container glass against water, which is required especially for storage of beverages and f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
