New Bio-inspired solutions for toughened architectural glass

玻璃在日常生活和工业中都很突出，但其固有的脆性仍然限制了其应用范围。我们最近开发了一种新颖的、受生物启发的低成本方法，可以显著提高玻璃的韧性。3D激光雕刻机被用来生成弱界面的网络，在过度应力的情况下，裂纹被引导到更难扩展的构型中。我们最初的工作集中在单轴拉伸加载和薄(150微米)玻璃样品的I型断裂上。我们建议探索、优化和测试新型3D雕刻图案，以提高用于窗户和建筑玻璃的厚(5 Mm)玻璃板的性能。对于这些应用，我们将专注于提高玻璃对弯曲应力、冲击和热冲击的抵抗力，同时保持可接受的光学透明度和长期稳定性。特别是，我们的雕刻方法将提高高温应用中不可回火的易碎微晶玻璃的抗冲击能力。我们还将使用雕刻来提高钠钙玻璃的性能，以提高抗冲击性和抗热震性，为某些应用提供有趣和高性价比的替代钢化玻璃和微晶玻璃。加拿大有几家玻璃制造商，该项目开发的新玻璃具有很大的经济潜力。例如，用于防火窗户、烤箱、加热灯或工业炉子的高温陶瓷玻璃在北美是一个7亿美元的市场。在这项工作中开发的一些新的高温钢化玻璃代表了一种在这个市场上没有竞争对手的新型玻璃。

Glass is prominent in everyday life and in industry, but its inherent brittleness still limits the range of its applications. We have recently developed a novel, bio-inspired and low-cost approach to significantly increase the toughness of glass. A 3D laser engraver is used to generate networks of weak interfaces and in case of excessive stresses the cracks are channelled into configurations where their propagation is more difficult. Our initial work focused on uniaxial tensile loading and mode I fracture on thin (150 microns) glass samples. We propose to explore, optimize and test new types of 3D engraved patterns to improve the performance of thick (5 mm) glass sheets used in windows and architectural glass. For these applications we will focus on improving the resistance of glass to flexural stresses, impacts and thermal shocks, while preserving an acceptable optical clarity and long-term stability. In particular, our engraving method will increase the resistance to impact of fragile glass-ceramics used in high-temperature applications, and which cannot be tempered. We will also use engraving to increase the performance of thick soda-lime glass to increase resistance to impact and resistance to thermal shocks, providing an interesting and highly cost effective alternative to tempered glass and to glass-ceramics for some applications. There are several fabricators of glass in Canada, and the new glasses developed in this project have a large economic potential. For example high-temperature ceramic-glass used for fireproof windows, ovens, heating lamps or industrial furnaces is a $700 million market in North America. Some of the new high-temperature toughened glasses developed in this work represent a new type of glass which would have no competition on this market.