ABSTRACT
At the end of the day structural glass design is limited by the loads the glass can carry. The strength of float glass is determined by two factors:
the compressive surface pre-stress induced by heat treatment
the quality of the glass edges
This paper looks at the quality of float glass edges and the effect of differences in edge processing using a Keyence VHX 7000 digital microscope. This is a new instrument which allows for a detailed study of glass surfaces to characterize defects including the normally invisible defects removed and added by glass processing. The study shows that glass edge processing is far from a consistent process and that edges that look good to the unaided human eye have critical defects which can be characterized and quantified using 3D digital microscopy.
