Tempered Glass Failure: Nickel Sulfide Particle

California failure analysis expert examines glass door failure to determine the root cause of the failure. The subject tempered glass door failed spontaneously, and because the glass was verticle, the broken pane remained intact. Read Consulting failure analysis laboratory was able to obtain the origin and perform a root cause failure analysis. The attached 25X Nomarski photomicrograph demonstrates that the glass failure originates at a nickel sulfide (NiS) particle. Once the glass failure has been initiated, the failure is driven by the residual stresses in the thermally tempered glass.  Glass fracture analysis shows the Wallner lines initiating at and expanding from a NiS particle. NiS particles are common in float glass, but they are only a problem in thermally tempered glass. Read Consulting Laboratory performs similar failure analyses on metals, plastics, ceramics and glass on a regular basis