Mining equipment must function seamlessly amid extreme conditions. The choice of materials can significantly impact project safety, productivity, and efficiency. For example, tempered glass must be used instead of annealed glass for certain applications because tempered glass can withstand the high temperatures and corrosive conditions of mining environments. Swift Glass delivers high-quality tempered glass solutions tailored to the mining industry’s unique needs.
Discover the benefits of tempered glass and how our products are utilized in the mining industry.
Elevate Your Mining Operations: The Benefits of Tempered Glass
Temperature Resistance
Mining equipment is exposed to a wide range of temperatures, from the intense heat of machinery to cold storage areas. Tempered glass, such as the tempered glass barrier plugs we produce, excels in these extreme conditions, maintaining its integrity and functionality amid temperature fluctuations. This temperature resistance is vital for applications such as lighting fixtures and enclosures, ensuring they perform reliably in any environment.
Safety
The safety benefits of tempered glass over annealed glass are important. When tempered glass does break, it shatters into small, blunt pieces that are far less likely to cause injury. This safety feature is particularly important in mining, where the risk of injury is heightened. Our tempered glass plugs are tempered in an oven to a certain strength level so that, when operating pressures surpass a specific limit, they break apart as needed. Other applications like machine windows and control panels become safer with tempered glass, protecting workers and equipment alike.
Durability
Thermal tempering enhances the glass’s strength, thermal shock resistance, and impact resistance. This durability is essential for mining equipment, which is exposed to abrasive materials, heavy loads, and sudden temperature changes. By improving the durability of glass components, mining operations can reduce downtime and maintenance costs.
The Swift Glass Advantage
Why choose Swift Glass for your mining glass needs? Our expertise in thermal glass tempering sets us apart. We are an ISO 9001:2015 certified and ITAR-registered company, adhering to strict mining industry standards. With nearly a century of experience in glass fabrication, Swift Glass is a global leader in providing innovative glass solutions to industries from aerospace to biomedical to optical to mining. In addition to thermal tempering, we provide a range of additional capabilities:
Swift Glass offers a range of thermal glass tempering capabilities, designed to meet the diverse needs of the mining industry. We can handle large sizes, custom shapes, and specialized coatings, ensuring that each piece of tempered glass is perfectly suited to its intended application. Swift Glass provides solutions for heavy machinery, protective windows, barrier plugs, and other mining applications.
Additional Resources
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Contact Swift Glass: Your Reliable Partner in Mining Glass Solutions
In mining, selecting the right materials ensures operational efficiency, personnel safety, and equipment longevity. Tempered glass, renowned for its exceptional durability, enhanced safety features, and remarkable temperature resistance, is the superior choice for a wide range of mining applications. Swift Glass offers tempered glass solutions designed and engineered to meet the mining industry’s stringent requirements.
Tempered glass—also known as toughened glass—is a strengthened material used when traditional annealed glass isn’t strong enough. Tempered glass is created by heat processing glass, making it up to four times stronger.
Uses and Applications of Tempered Glass
Tempered glass is immensely versatile and used in a wide variety of products. Tempered glass is used in automobile windows to make them less dangerous in the event of an accident. Tempered glass will break into smaller, duller pieces than annealed glass, making it the safer choice.
Tempered glass can also be found around the home in heat-adjacent objects such as stovetops, counters, ovens, and tabletops.
Essentially, toughened glass can be found anywhere that requires glass to withstand a great deal of wear and tear. It is specifically made to avoid injury in case of breakage and provides an ideal solution for:
High-pressure windows
Lighting products
Explosion-proof windows
Display cases
Related Processes and Specific Requirements of Glass Tempering
Tempered glass is created by heating glass. The tempering process involves a couple of steps:
Heating. The glass travels through a high-heat tempering oven and is heated to approximately 1200 °F.
Quenching. After it has been sufficiently heated, the glass is then quenched—or cooled down. The quenching procedure is very fast, and consists of several nozzles blasting the glass with cool air for several seconds. This is where tempered glass gets its strength—this dramatic shock causes the surface and edges to become compressed, and the inner layer to be in tension, thus strengthening the material by three to five times.
Tempered Glass Solutions from Swift Glass
At Swift Glass, our expert thermal glass tempering services are of the highest quality. Whether your project is big or small, you can feel secure knowing Swift Glass provides only carefully inspected, high-quality tempered glass parts.
In addition to our thermal tempering and chemical strengthening capabilities, our experienced specialists provide numerous services, including ultra-high pressure cold cutting, chemical strengthening, CNC machining, printing, drilling, and polishing.
High performance glass is in demand for a variety of applications that require durable and reliable glass products, including windows for industrial and safety applications that must withstand bullets, explosions, and high pressure. In addition to windows, high performance glass is useful for industrial lighting products, military, medical and many other applications.
High Performance Glass Stress Points
The value of high performance glass comes from its high breaking point and the manner in which it breaks. Rather than shattering into long, sharp pieces like standard annealed glass, high performance, or tempered, glass breaks into small pebble-shaped pieces that are less likely to cause severe injury.
High performance glass is used particularly in situations where certain external forces would break untreated glass, as it can withstand stress more easily. It is especially useful in applications where the following factors may be encountered:
High Pressure
High pressure from architectural stress, water pressure from marine environments, or extreme pressure variations in aerospace applications can cause breakage and damage of standard annealed glass. High performance tempered glass provides an excellent alternative to ensure both durability and safety in environments where extreme pressure changes are common.
Intense Temperatures
In certain industrial environments, tempered glass is an excellent material for windows and other glass components, as it is highly resistant to temperature changes and has a higher resistance to thermal shock.
Harsh, Wet, and Extreme Environments
Heat strengthened glass is useful in applications with exposure to harsh weather conditions. With its thermal resistance and tensile strength, high performance glass is an ideal material for high winds, rain, and temperature extremes.
Explosions, Bullets, and Projectiles
Tempered glass is frequently used in the production of car windshields, industrial windows, and other applications where its impact-resistant nature is useful. In the event that tempered glass does break, it is into small pieces that are much less dangerous than typical sharp shards produced by standard glass.
The Thermal Glass Tempering Process
What Is Tempered Glass?
Unlike standard annealing treatments, which allow the interior and exterior temperature of the glass to cool at the same rate, tempering uses an extreme heating and rapid cooling process. This process causes the exterior of the glass to harden and cool more quickly than the interior, so the exterior compresses the glass interior. The stress between the interior and exterior structures creates a higher tensile strength than that of annealed glass.
Tempered glass is also more heat resistant, and can withstand heat up to 470°F, which could cause untreated glass to shatter or crack. The main benefit of tempering is the compression prevents the glass from breaking into jagged pieces upon impact. Rather, the glass crumbles into less dangerous rounded pebbles.
How Glass Is Tempered
Glass is tempered through a series of four steps:
Glass is cut to the desired size and shape.
Glass is thoroughly cleaned and examined for imperfections. Any debris or imperfections on the surface of the glass will compromise the tempering process.
The cleaned and flawless glass is heat treated in a specialized tempering oven.
Once heated, the glass is quenched in high-pressure cold air currents from numerous directions to create the desired tension between the cooled outer surface and the inner portion of the glass. This tension is what gives tempered glass its coveted strength and granular nature.
High Performance Glass Applications
High performance glass in high demand for a variety of industries and applications, including:
Automotive
Marine
Military and Government
Lighting
Medical
Petrochemical
High Performance Glass From Swift Glass
Swift Glass is a proud industry leader in the production of a variety of high performance glass products. Our experienced and knowledgeable staff are available to provide ultra high-pressure cold cutting, polishing, CNC machining, printing, drilling, and a variety of other manufacturing processes in support of our chemical strengthening and thermal tempering services.
Whatever your project needs, Swift Glass is here to help! For more information on our high performance glass services, visit our website or contact us today.
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The value of high performance glass comes from its high breaking point and the manner in which it breaks. Rather than shattering into long, sharp pieces like standard annealed glass, 
