I’m sure we’ve all seen pictures online. Glass coffee and patio tables, oven doors, regular glass doors, and I even saw a set of glass *stairs* just today that had exploded in the middle of the night. What’s going on here?
(Unsure if this should be flaired physics or chemistry so I guessed. Or maybe it’s engineering?)
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Imagine most of these situations are tempered glass. Tempered glass is a special glass, made stronger by baking at high temperatures.
It’s like toasting bread for a long long time. It isn’t floppy anymore, much more stiff but if you squish it now it just turns to crumbs.
Now different to the bread, the tempering process leaves the glass under alot of stress, almost like a bubble. The side effect is if this bubble pops, the crumbs go everywhere, kinda like it exploded.
So any small damage to the glass bubble, especially on the edges can make the glass pop. Sometimes right away, other times much later.
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