There has been a recent development in the awareness for the safety feature offered by glass.
Tempered glass may be considered safety glass due to the decreased injury risk lead by the shattering pattern, but the proper safety glass product that is being increasingly enforced in governmental and architectural regulations in areas designated as “Critical Locations” where frequent human contact at close proximity occurs, is laminated glass.
Laminated glass, or sandwich glass as it is nicknamed, consists of two or more sheets of glass with a tough, durable interlayer, polyvinyl butyral (PVB) or ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), which is processed with heat and pressure resulting in a glazing unit that keeps the unit bonded when broken by impact , as the glass will adhere to the interlayer and generally stay in the frame, minimising the risk of injury from sharp edges and flying or falling glass and strongly resists penetration by the impacting objects or people.
Bent Tempered laminated glass with radii between 1m – 15m is one of Mansour’s special capabilities that provides architects and designers more flexibility combined with its safety benefits. Laminating Bent tempered glass is not an easy process, but with Mansour’s extensive experience and knowledge in this field, characteristics of a superior safety glass – strength , flexibility and adhesion, is made available to customers.
Laminated (and Bent Tempered) Safety Glass can be combined into an insulating glass unit (See insulating glass configurations).
Components
1- Monolithic Glass: with its customization options (see Single Glass)
2- Interlayer A wide variety of PVB Interlayers are available with the following specs:
- Thicknesses according to the standards needed for each glass application, it ranges between a single 0.38mm layer up to 5 layers of 1.9mm, most commonly used is 4 layers of 1.52mm PVB.
- Color & Opacity a a range of PVB colours ( including blue, green, orange, red, yellow, grey ) ranging from a diffused semi- translucent look of white to transparent tints and solid opaque colours.
- Decorative Film (Coupled with PVB layer) For the architectural and interior design market , special coloured and decorative graphic interlayers can be introduced to encourage new design possibilities.
- Special films (Sound control PVB, Smart film)
Trosifol- Kuraray
Mansour is dedicated to providing the best quality products, therefore uses the best quality materials. Trosifol is the world’s leading PVB producer headquartered in Germany.
Functions
1- Safety
Safety and protection is the main function of laminated glass, most commonly used for Balustrades, Canopies, Skylights, entrances, overhead glazing, wherever human contact is frequent. It can provide protection against man-made threats such as forcible-entry or vandalism, or natural disasters such as hurricanes.
Security is another major benefit offered by laminated glass, Mansour has installed countless Bullet-Proof glass units at schools, banks, Jewelry shops, adhering to International European standards, including Protecting property and people ( standards EN 12600 and En 256 ), Protection against gunshots (Standard EN 1063), Protections against explosions (standards EN 13541).
2- Sound ( Acoustic Insulation):
This function serves a big role for housing in noisy neighborhoods such as close to a highway or an airport, or where sound needs to be contained to provide a better user experience and comfort.
Different laminated glass configurations provide different sound transmission loss (dB), it can range between 23 dB – 51 dB by selecting different glass sheet thicknesses coupled with a certain thickness PVB layer, where special sound-proof PVB is also available for exception sound attenuation.
3- UV Protection:
Laminated glass also blocks out 99% of UV rays. This characteristic makes it excellent for window and skylight applications. Valuable art work, fabrics, carpets and furniture that are exposed to significant levels of sunlight will be protected from damaging UVA and UVB ultraviolet light.
4- Aesthetics
Coupled with colored or decorative PVB, Graphic film, ceramic frit back painting or silk-screen printing, laminated glass offers not only outstanding safety features but also an appearance that will impress.