Vehicle Body Engineering

Vehicle Body Materials - Glass

Department of Automobile Engineering
T.Veeramahantesh Swamy
Professor & HOD

GLASS

Glass

Safety glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid that has been

around in various forms for thousands of years
and has been manufactured for human use
since 12,000 BCE.
The status of glass as a liquid, versus a solid,
has been hotly debated. The short story is that
glass is a super-cooled liquid, meaning that it is
rigid and static but does not change
molecularly between melting and solidification
into a desired shape.
Glass is one the most versatile substances on
Earth, used in many applications and in a wide
variety of forms, from plain clear glass to
tempered and tinted varieties, and so forth.

Glass

Glass occurs naturally when rocks high in

silicates melt at high temperatures and cool
before they can form a crystalline structure.
Volcanic glass is a well known example of
naturally occurring glass, although it can also be
formed by a lightning strike on a beach, which
contains silicate-rich sand.
Early forms of glass were probably rife with
impurities and subject to cracking and other
instability, but examples of glass beads, jars,
and eating materials first appeared in ancient
Egyptian culture.

Glass

When manufactured by humans, glass is a

mixture of silica, soda, and lime. Other materials
are sometimes added to the mixture to frost or
cloud the glass or to add color.
The elements of glass are heated to 1800
Fahrenheit (982 Celsius). The resulting fused
liquid can be poured into molds or blown into
various shapes, and when cooled, glass is a
strong, minimally conducting substance that will
not interact with materials stored inside.
As a result, glass is frequently used in scientific
laboratories to minimize inadvertent chemical
reactions and to insulate power lines.

Raw materials

Glass is composed of numerous oxides that fuse and react

together upon heating to form a glass. These include silica
(SiO2), sodium oxide (Na2O), and calcium oxide (CaO).
Raw materials from which these materials are derived are sand,
soda ash (Na2CO3), and limestone (CaCO3).
Soda ash acts as a flux; in other words, it lowers the melting
point of the batch composition.
Lime is added to the batch in order to improve the hardness and
chemical durability of the glass.
Glass used for windshields also usually contains several other
oxides: potassium oxide (K2O derived from potash), magnesium
oxide (MgO), and aluminum oxide (AI2O3 derived from
feldspar).

Safety Glass

Safety glass is something

many of us look through
every time we ride inside
a vehicle or enter a public
building. There are two
kinds of safety glass:
Laminated (Annealed)
Toughened (Tempered)

Laminated glass
(Annealed glass)

Laminated glass, commonly used in

the automotive and architectural
fields, comprises a protective
interlayer, usually polyvinyl butyral
(PVB), bonded between two panels
of glass.
The bonding process takes place
under heat and pressure.
When laminated under these
conditions, the PVB interlayer
becomes optically clear and binds
the two panes of glass together.
Once sealed together, the glass
"sandwich" (i.e., laminate) behaves
as a single unit and looks like normal
glass.

Broken tempered laminated

Glass "wet blanket effect"

Interlayer /coloring

The polymer interlayer of PVB is tough

and ductile, so brittle cracks will not
pass from one side of the laminate to
the other.
PVB interlayer can be purchased in
colored sheets, such as for the blue or
green "shade band" at the top edge of
many automobile windshields.

Polyvinyl butyral (or PVB)

PVB is a resin usually used for applications

that require strong binding, optical clarity,
adhesion to many surfaces, toughness and
flexibility.
It is prepared from polyvinyl alcohol by
reaction with butyraldehyde.
The major application is laminated safety
glass for automobile windshields.
Tradenames for PVB-films include:
GlasNovations,BUTACITE, SAFLEX, S-Lec,
TROSIFOL etc.

In practice, the interlayer provides

three beneficial properties to
laminated glass panes:

first, the interlayer functions to distribute impact

forces across a greater area of the glass panes, thus
increasing the impact resistance of the glass;
second, the interlayer functions to bind the resulting
shards if the glass is ultimately broken;
third the viscoelastic interlayer undergoes plastic
deformation during impact and under static loads
after impact, absorbing energy and reducing
penetration by the impacting object as well as
reducing the energy of the impact that is transmitted
to impacting object, e.g. a passenger in a car crash.
Thus, the benefits of laminated glass include safety
and security.

Toughened glass
(Tempered glass)

Toughened glass is a type of safety glass

that has increased strength and will usually
shatter in small, square pieces when
broken.
It is used when strength, thermal resistance
and safety are important considerations.
Using toughened glass on automobile
windshields would be a problem when a
small stone hits the windshield at speed, as
it would shatter into small squares
endangering the driver and passengers.
In commercial structures it is used in
unframed assemblies such as frameless
doors, structurally loaded applications and
door lites and vision lites adjacent to doors.
Toughened glass is typically four to six
times the strength of annealed glass

Glass Manufacturing process

Wind Shield Processing

Cutting and tempering

The glass is cut into the desired dimensions using a diamond

scribea tool with sharp metal points containing diamond dust.
Diamond is used because it is harder than glass. The scribe
marks a cut line into the glass, which is then broken or snapped
at this line. This step is usually automated and is monitored by
cameras and optoelectronic measuring systems.
Next, the cut piece must be bent into shape (aerodynamic
shape). The sheet of glass is placed into a form or mold of
metal or refractory material. The glass-filled mold is then heated
in a furnace to the point where the glass sags to the shape of
the mold.

Cutting and tempering

After this shaping step, the glass must be hardened in a heating step
called tempering.
First, the glass is quickly heated to about 850 degrees Celsius, and
then it is blasted with jets of cold air.
Called quenching, this process toughens the glass by putting the outer
surface into compression and the inside into tension.
This allows the windshield, when damaged, to break into many small
pieces of glass without sharp edges.
The size of the pieces can also be changed by modifying the tempering
procedure so that the windshield breaks into larger pieces, allowing
good vision until the wind-shield can be replaced.

Assembling windshield

After laminating, the windshield is ready to be assembled with

plastic moldings so it can be installed on the car.
Known as glass encapsulation, this assembly process is usually
done at the glass manufacturer.
First, the peripheral section of the windshield is set in a
predetermined position in a mold cavity.
Next, molten plastic is injected into the mold; when it cools, it
forms a plastic frame around the glass.
The windshield assembly is then shipped to the car manufacturer,
where it is installed in an automobile.
The installation is done by direct glazing, a process that uses a
polyurethane adhesive to bond the windshield and automobile
body.