Tempered and laminated glasses are the most commonly used types in commercial and residential décor, and they’re more challenging and hard-wearing than other types of glasses. This article offers you the main differences between tempered glass and laminated glass.
Tempered Glass
Also referred to as toughened glass, tempered glass is a safety glass manufactured using controlled thermal and chemical treatment processes to give it more strength than ordinary glass. The tempering process involves putting the outer surfaces of the glass into compression and the inner surfaces into tension.
The glass is run through a tempering oven for baking. The baking temperature is usually between 800 and 1400 degrees, and you can’t use the mirror as ordinary.
There are several advantages of tempering glass. It makes it stronger on its face so that it becomes harder to break. That’s why shops and offices are partitioned with tempered glass. It’s improved safety when the glass breaks, shattering into tiny pieces instead of large shards that can cause severe cuts.
Laminated Glass
Laminated glass is a safety glass designed to hold together when shattered so that it doesn’t cut you. Unlike tempered glass, laminated glass doesn’t break into small pieces; instead, it develops many tiny cracks that are held together by a thin interlayer of polymer, which can be made of polyvinyl butyral (PVB), tonoplast polymers, cast in place (CIP) gooey resin, ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), or thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). This polymer is placed between two or more layers of glass to hold them together, even when broken.
A ¼” thick laminated glass has two pieces of 1/8” glass held together by a thin plastic interlayer. But a 3/8” thick laminated glass has two parts of 3/16” glass attached with a plastic polymer. However, each piece of glass is cut and fabricated separately before the two or three pieces are bonded together with the polymer.