Nowadays, tempered glass has a wide range of applications, present in both the construction and electronic equipment industries. In the construction sector, every establishment should have decorative tempered glass, such as glass doors and windows, glass partitions, furniture glass, and electronic glass. Office spaces also feature glass decorations, and everyone is curious about how tempered glass is actually made.

Tempered glass is produced by heating ordinary glass in a tempering furnace at high temperatures, resulting in a more uniform surface pre-stress. This enhances the glass's impact and resistance, making its strength 3-5 times that of ordinary glass.

There are mainly two methods for manufacturing tempered glass: physical tempering and chemical tempering. Let's get to know these two methods below.

Physical Tempering: A production method that involves heating glass to nearly its softening point, then blowing air simultaneously on both sides to rapidly cool it, thereby enhancing the glass's mechanical strength and thermal stability.

Chemical Tempering Method: This method alters the surface composition of glass through chemical means, enhancing the compressive stress of the surface layer to increase the glass's mechanical strength and thermal stability. As it strengthens glass through ion exchange, it is also referred to as the ion exchange strengthening method.

Generally, glass processed using physical tempering methods tends to be harder than that processed by chemical tempering. However, the choice should be based on the selected thickness, as different thicknesses may require different methods. For instance, glass over 3mm thick can typically be physically tempered, while thinner glass would only be suitable for chemical tempering.

Did you learn anything from the above knowledge?