esg toughened glass

the ultimate safety glass

Toughened glass is recognised as a Class A safety glass. If it is damaged or shattered, it breaks safely into small glass fragments. Although these fragments, which resemble small pebbles, may cause small cuts or bruises, they do not inflict the kind of serious injury which can occur from the sharp shards that are formed when ordinary annealed glass is broken.

To create toughened glass, the raw material – a float glass sheet – is cut and processed to the customer’s requirement. This includes creating any shape required, polishing, drilling holes, or routing out notches and cut outs.

The glass is then washed and dried and placed on a bed of rollers, which carry it into a furnace, or oven. The float glass is heated up, all the while being kept moving continuously by rollers, which rock it backwards and forwards. This is known as a roller-wave. Eventually, the glass heats sufficiently to become malleable.

Once the glass has reached this stage, it is then carried by rollers to the second phase of the toughening process. This takes the glass into a quench, which blows cool air on the glass surface. As the surface area of the panel cools quicker than its centre, it creates a sealed tension within the panel which changes the integrity of the glass. This is now toughened glass.

After toughening, the glass is 4 to 5 times stronger than it was in its original annealed state, making it an excellent product to use in a variety of applications. These include low-level balustrades, partitioning glass, shower enclosures, splashbacks and wall cladding.

Toughened glass is ideal for these and many other installations; firstly, because of its added strength; and secondly, for the way that it breaks safely, by shattering into small glass pebbles, rather than sharp shards. We recommend that any glass to be used in a guarding application should be heat-soaked.