Edition 68 (October-December, 2022)

Glaston• 2
is booming, too. At the same time,
architects are looking to maximize the
transparency of their buildings while
making their designs unique.
Greater demand for high-strength
laminates
One of the products increasingly
required by the market is highstrength
/ structural laminate.
Originally this demand started
from special applications, such as
structural laminates (that can replace
load-bearing structures such as pillars
in buildings, perhaps the most famous
example being the Apple Store in New
York) and hurricane-resistant glazing.
But with ever-increasing safety
demands for products, high-strength
laminates are rapidly making their
way to traditional applications such as
railings, as well.
While these type of laminates
offer often superior performance for
the application, they also are more
complex to process. This leads to a
situation where glass processors are
facing a demand to produce these
products in increasing quantities,
while struggling with yield and
capacity. When this is combined with
the fact that structural interlayers
are typically more expensive than
traditional ones, being able to ensure
high yield is of utmost importance.
Narrow operating window resulting
in air bubbles
A narrow operating window (range
of optimal process temperature) is
the main reason for these difficulties.
In general, the more complex the
laminate is in terms of size, shape,
glass type or laminate composition,
the narrower the range of optimal
temperature is for the process. As a
result, quality can be impaired.
One of the most common quality
issue seen in the laminating process
is bubbles at the trailing end of the
laminate. In practice what the bubbles
mean is that there is too much air left
inside the laminate. While there can
be multiple reasons that are causing
this, with high-strength laminates
the reason is often overheating of the
edge areas of the laminate. The same
phenomenon happens regardless
of the heating type used, and it
happens on every edge of the laminate
(leading, left, right and trailing). The
issue is predominantly seen on the
trailing edge as that’s where most of
the air gets pushed during pressing.
New convection technology cracks
the challenge
The good news is that an efficient
solution for the issue has been found.
Glaston’s patented Convection Control
technology has been developed
specifically to increase production
capability with structural and highstrength
laminates.
Until now, glass processors have
had to be very precise to achieve good
quality with complex laminates while
struggling with yield. With the new
convection control system, processing
these products becomes more like
working with standard laminates.
In practice this means that glass
processors will be able to reach higher
capacity and yield with complex
laminates.
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Source: https://glastory.net
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Email: info@glaston.net
Website: www.glaston.net
Glass Bulletin | October - December, 2022 87