I’ve had this question in my head for a long time, and it’s time to silence the thoughts. I’m always paranoid that the shelf will break with 3 gallons of liquid on it but it never does, even though the glass shelf is flexing and isn’t metal like the 1950’s fridge shelves. It doesn’t have plastic edging where the glass sits, so it’s just a sheet of flexing death.
In: Engineering
Glass is very strong. One of the strongest materials in tension as opposed to compression. Fiberglass is used to build all kinds of things that need strength where weight is not much of an issue. It is also brittle so I suspect you are confusing brittle with weak. Concrete which people think of as strong is weak in tension but very strong in compression.
The glass shelf if tempered. This means that the glass was heat treated. The glass is cut to the desired size then heated to 600 Celsius. Then the glass is cooled very quickly. This causes the glass to pull in on itself, the inside of the glass is kept under tension, while the surface is under compression greatly adding to its strength.
In order to break the surface of the glass has to be pulled apart, but the inside of the glass is always pulling back. Think of it this way. Take some wood building blocks and some rope with a knot at one end. Drill a hole through each block and string them on the rope. This is your piece of glass, but it isn’t very strong. So we pull the rope as tight as we can and tie another knot. Now the rope is under tension, and the blocks are being compressed together, just like the glass. Now if you try to bend your blocks they hold together much better.
Latest Answers