Safety Glass
If you need glass that will shatter safely for windows, doors and more, look to highly engineered safety glass
Safety glass is highly engineered glass that is made to shatter safely in the right applications. There are basically three types of safety glass: tempered, laminated and annealed. Each type is made by its own unique process, depending on whether the glass needs to be strong, flexible or a combination of the two.
Tabletops and other decorative items in the home are made of glass specifically engineered for each application.
Annealed glass is a safety glass that has been cooled slowly to create a suface that is less likely to break with temperature changes. Annealed glass can break in large, sharp shards, so using it in low-traffic areas is important. It is less expensive to manufacture than tempered glass, and stronger than normal glass.
Tempered glass is used for doors and in high-traffic areas. The glass is heated and then cooled with a blast of very cold air, making the brittle surface cool faster than the relatively soft core. The result is glass that will break into tiny square pieces that have rounded edges. Tempered glass is stronger than annealed glass and safer if it breaks.
Tempered glass is also called toughened glass. Safety codes have made tempered glass mandatory for areas where human protection is necessary. Any window within 3 feet of a door requires tempered glass.
Laminated glass typically has two layers of glass with a film layer of polyvinyl butyral between them. This flexible layer allows the glass to have a little bend to it; if the glass shatters, a fabric of little glass pieces will remain connected to the film. Laminated glass is used for car windshields, while side doors and back windows have tempered glass. Laminated glass is also used for floors and has an excellent sound-dampening ability.
Glass floors for catwalks must follow many code requirements to span the room safely. Floor panels made of glass can combine all the types of safety glass into one. They can be constructed of laminated layers of tempered or heat-strengthened or annealed glass.