Laser Cutting for the Glass Industry
Jeff Walters August 12th, 2007
Laser cutting changes are coming about in the glass industry; including the automotive and aerospace industries. Glass is being made thinner and thinner in order to increase the overall strength per thickness.
Let me back up and explain in a little more detail. Glass in general can be very brittle, but it’s the air hardening process that makes the surface of the glass strong. The inside of the finished glass is relatively much weaker. So, most of the strength in the glass is towards the two surfaces that are treated. Make the glass thinner and you create a stronger piece of glass per measure of thickness. The ratio of strength to thickness is much greater; often on the order of 10 to 20 times stronger.
Apply these thiner sheets of glass together with plastics and you’ve got yourself one hell of a strong piece of glass, possibly to be used in the next generation of US Air Force fighter jets.
But, it’s just not that easy to do when you cut your glass with a diamond cutting machine . Current autoclaving processes of thin layers of glass cut by diamond cutters produce many failures. Cracks are very common during the hardening process, and overall yields can be as bad as 8-10%. This dramatically drives up the cost of production.
Laser Photonics has come up with a better solution; Zero Width Laser Cutting Technology (TM). This unique patented processes can laser scribe glass to produce a controlled separation with a non-dimensional cutting line. The resulting edge is incredibly strong. Using this process to produce mulitlayered glass will increase production yield up to 99%, saving the glass industry millions - if not billions of dollars. This is truely a revolutionary process that will change the glass industry very soon.
For more information, visit:
Laser Photonics, LLC.
and
Fonon Display and Semiconductor Systems