Toronto developer announces it will use non-exploding glass on its condos
Er, wait, this was an option all along? After a spate of incidents involving falling glass showering the streets beneath downtown condos, Lanterra Developments (the company behind the Murano towers, from which a pane of glass fell 31 storeys and injured a passerby near Bay Street on Monday) says it will now use laminated glass instead of tempered glass on its outside features. The key difference is that laminated glass is covered in plastic, which means that if a pane shatters it won’t send shards hurtling toward the ground. We’re happy to hear that Lanterra is moving in this direction, and we hope other developers do too. Of course, we wish they had ponied up the extra dollars earlier, instead of waiting until the ninth episode of exploding glass to change things up. Read the entire story [Star] »
Laminated glass is not necessarily stronger than monolithic glass; comparing same total thickness of glass both are as strong, as long as the components of the laminated glass are also tempered.
My assumption is that the tempered glass used was flawed prior to tempering of was contaminated while tempering.
When glass is manufactured small particles of nickel sulphide can be trapped in the glass which is not a problem if the glass is just cut and used normally. The problem arises when the glass is tempered which means it is heated rapidly and then cooled rapidly to strengthen the glass. Unfortunately these particles remain trapped within the glass under stress creating a weak point which is a ticking time bomb and can go off at any time and the glass can explode. Tempered laminate, which is 2 pieces of tempered glass bonded together with, for example our Alphasure film is one of the most efficient ways of preventing this because if the glass does explode the laminated panel will remain intact and is simply removed and replaced.