New laser-engraving strategies for the manufacturing of toughened glass

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Glass is used in countless applications because of its outstanding optical properties, hardness, durability and chemical stability. However, its range of application is still restricted by its main drawback: brittleness. Glass is extremely sensitive to defects and stress concentrations and its resistance to impact and thermal shock is extremely low. Our research team recently discovered a new, low-cost, bio-inspired manufacturing method to significantly increase the toughness of glass. In this method we create networks of weak interfaces within the bulk of the material using a 3D laser engraver, in order to channel cracks into configurations in which their propagation is rendered more difficult. We demonstrated that this approach can "amplify" the toughness of thin glass plates by several hundreds of times in pure tensile mode and mode I cracking. In this project we will explore this new concept of microarchitecture and bioinspiration to other type of configurations such as thick glass, curved glass or thin glass on substrate subjected to flexural stresses, impacts, sharp puncture, thermal stresses or to combinations of the above which are typical to the loads experienced by glass in actual applications: architectural and safety glasses, high-end glass containers and touch screens. The engraved network will be tailored to each of these specific loading conditions which will require extensive modeling, exploration, optimization, and testing. Structural performance will be increased while minimizing the effect of the engraved patterns on the optical quality for each of these applications. Three-dimensional laser engraving is a highly innovative and versatile manufacturing method which can be implemented at any stage in the manufacturing process, including on finished products. While there are currently no fabricators of glass in Canada, there are many companies that purchase glass from fabricators to manufacture glass products. We will work in close collaboration with three of these glass manufacturing companies, each operating in different industrial sectors. This exploration work will also enable further expansions to other industrial domains, and to other brittle materials such as coatings and engineering ceramics.