Tempered glass is safety glazing strengthened by creating compressive stress at its surfaces. During tempering, the glass is heated and then cooled rapidly. This pre-stressed structure improves load-bearing capacity, wind-pressure resistance, impact strength and resistance to temperature change compared with ordinary annealed glass of the same thickness.
Strength and breakage behaviour
Tempered glass has three to five times the impact strength and three to five times the bending strength of ordinary glass at the same thickness. If breakage occurs, the pane fractures into many small, relatively blunt particles rather than large sharp shards. This combination of greater strength and safer breakage behaviour is why tempered glass is widely used as a safety-glazing material.
Tempering also improves thermal stability, with resistance to temperature differences approximately three times that of ordinary glass. Actual performance depends on the glass make-up, dimensions, edge quality, support conditions and exposure.
Fabrication sequence
All cutting, drilling, edgework and shaping must be completed before the glass enters the tempering furnace. A tempered pane cannot be cut or machined afterwards without causing breakage, so dimensions and fabrication details need to be fixed before production.
Design considerations
Thermal tempering can introduce slight roller-wave distortion or local unevenness that may affect reflected images. Tempered glass also carries a risk of spontaneous breakage. These characteristics should be considered when appearance, replacement access and installation method are evaluated.
Xionggang fabricates tempered glass for architectural and interior applications. The final configuration should be selected to match the required safety, structural, thermal and visual criteria of the project.