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Identifying metallic glass failures

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Research opens up metallic glass

Research opens up metallic glass

Researchers at Rice University have developed a calculation model that may explain where and why metallic glasses break. Scientists have long known that glasses form stress bands that make glass more prone to breakage in certain spots than others. The same is true of metallic glass – a hybrid glass compound that creates a super-strong material that may have unusual properties usually reserved for metals.

Knowing how and where a metallic glass might break gives engineers an advantage when designing parts that need to be ultra-durable – such as parts for a satellite or space vehicle. Metallic glasses typically deform under stress, but they don’t usually break. Their durability is what makes them ideal for extreme environments, so knowing how, why or when a part may break is critical.

Although the researchers are especially interested in the behavior of metallic glass, their findings could be applied to non-metallic glasses, too. One reason that the glass forms shear bands is that the molecular arrangement of glass (and metallic glass) isn’t crystalline. The amorphous structure of glass allows molecules to continue to move, even when glass has achieved an apparently solid state.

In most cases, when the glass isn’t under stress, molecular movement is imperceptibly slight. When the glass is stressed, however, the molecular movement increases notably. The areas where molecular movement is the greatest coincides with the development of the shear bands in the glass. The shear bands are ultimately the areas of the glass that fail, causing breakage.

The research means that scientists and engineers will be able to more easily calculate the actual strength of glass and metallic glasses quickly. That information can help materials scientists calculate the fitness of a particular glass formulation for a specific application without having to rely on trial-and-error testing.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used in both interior and exterior applications and can help reduce solar heat gain in some applications. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Hugh Dutton Associés, via Flickr.com

Colorado School gets glass strength grant

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Colorado School gets glass strength grant

Colorado School gets glass strength grant

Glass is both spectacular and fascinating, but the things that make it amazing also challenge our ability to use it. It’s easy to think of glass as a solid material. You can touch it without changing it. It has a hard surface. It has most of the characteristics of a solid. Except that one thing that makes it truly solid – a crystalline molecular structure.

We don’t usually look at glass at the molecular level, but if we did, we’d see glass molecules arranged in a random pattern instead of the typical, neatly ordered structure that gives solids their strength. That molecular randomness makes glass weaker than other materials, and it makes it tough to classify glass as a solid, even though it seems… well … solid.

The Usable Glass Strength Coalition has given an $80,000 grant to the Colorado School of Mines to study glass in order to improve the industry’s understanding of the strength of glass. The CSM proposal was chosen because it advances strength research that was already performed by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. The CSM researchers hope to answer questions about why glass surfaces can lose strength as they interact with their environment.

The researchers will examine flaws in glass and glass components that set or contribute to inherent weaknesses in finished glass. Understanding the mechanisms that make glass weak may help scientists develop new manufacturing methods or discover new materials that can enhance the strength of glass.

Improving the strength of glass can contribute to advances in many different fields, including science and research, manufacturing, construction, clean energy and telecommunications, among others. Today, glass is typically strengthened by heat-treatment or by coating the glass surface to make it more resistant to contact injuries.

Heat-treated glass is significantly stronger than untreated glass, but it may also suffer from manufacturing defects that are hard to detect and can result in catastrophic failures. New coatings can also strengthen and protect a glass surface, but they can be expensive to create and may not protect against common accidents. Being able to strengthen glass at the molecular level may reduce the need to treat glass after manufacturing, and may produce better, more reliable results.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store

Photo Credit: Steven Duong, via Flickr.com

Glass strength could be doubled

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Glass strength could be doubled

Glass strength could be doubled

If someone asked you to make a list of “strong” materials, glass probably wouldn’t make the cut. We associate glass with breaking and fragility, mainly because we’ve all dropped a glass or two, with inevitable results. But researchers are making some surprising discoveries about glass strength and other qualities that just might change the way we think about glass.

New manufacturing process needed for better glass strength

Recent research conducted at Rice University showed that glass strength could be doubled if the glass production process were tweaked. There are few current applications for glass that couldn’t benefit from a little extra muscle. Stronger glass could mean better (and safer) windows, doors and windshields as well as tougher smartphone and tablet screens.

We think of glass as a solid because we usually encounter it in its solid form, but during production, glass is very much liquid. When glass is in its liquid form, the molecules in it have a random arrangement – the same as any other liquid. When glass solidifies, the molecules “harden” in this same random arrangement, unlike other solids, which usually have a more organized, crystalline pattern. This lack of an organized structure at the molecular level changes the strength of glass and explains why glass shatters and cracks randomly when it breaks. If glass molecules could be ordered when glass changes from a liquid to a solid state, the strength of the glass could be significantly improved.

Changing the way glass molecules behave actually requires more than a “tweak” to the glassmaking process. Today, most plate glass is made using the “float” method, which involves “floating” molten glass onto a bed of molten tin. By allowing the molten glass to cool slightly, the glass can be worked into specific thicknesses. Once the glass has achieved the desired thickness, it cools into the hardened glass we’re familiar with.

That approach cannot be used to line up the glass molecules into the crystalline structure needed for additional strength. A completely different process, more like the one used to deposit film layers on reflective glass, could theoretically be used to improve glass strength. Ultimately, all glass is breakable under the right conditions, but stronger glass could have a significant impact on the use of glass in architecture, electronics, automobiles and decorating.

For more information about decorating with glass, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Peter Marwitz, via FreeImages.com