Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Glass Expert Discusses Modern Auto Windshields


California glass expert has been involved with evaluation automobile windshields. One way car manufacturers can  increase automobile mileage is to decrease weight. A part of this effort has been to reduce the weight of automobile windshields. This is done by reducing the thickness of the windshield. Upper left is a representative cross section of a modern windshield. The glass is only 2mm thick, and the polyvinyl butyral (PVB) inter-layer is only 0.07 mm thick. On the positive side, this reduces weight and improves the mileage. On the negative side, this windshield is prone to cracking. Upper right is a photograph of a windshield failure. The crack that was started by an impact from a rock. This crack formed immediately and has grown continuously for several months. Older windshields were thicker and were less prone to this sort of cracking. 

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