Another Cause For Spontaneous Breakage Of Tempered Glass - Silicon Particles In Tensile Zone

It has been discovered and demonstrated via SEM examination on six samples of broken tempered glasses that one of important causes for spontaneous breakage of tempered glass is due to the monolithic silicon particle inclusion, rather than only nickel sulfide particles which many people in glass industries thought to be the main cause of spontaneous breakage of tempered glass. The mechanism of the spontaneous breakage resulting from the silicon particles was analyzed using finite element method. The calculation indicates that the crack initiation and propagation in glass by the tensile tangent stress near the silicon particle causes the sudden breakage. The risk of spontaneous breakage in tempered glass caused by the silicon particles would increase with the decrease of the application temperature