Shower screen exploded

[silverthorn2151]

Toughened glass can spontaneously shatter as a result of inclusions in the glass during the manufacturing process. These are often microscopic specs of nickel sulphide.

During the toughening process the glass is heated and the. Cooled. The small specs cool at a slower rate than the glass. And as a result they set up huge internal stresses within the glass. Tons per sq inch is not unusual (I am trawling my memory here so details might be blurred) . Any change in the state of the glass can then cause the glass to shatter like the screens described. That can be heat, cold, impact or twisting movement. Glass is very rigid but also very elastic in that when deflected it recovers to its former state almost exactly.

I have heard that the shower screen shattering is attributable to the same sort of thing. Incidentally the metal particles were thought to come from furnaces fired by recycled engine oil.

Anyway, if any of you know the building near Bank station that has had scaffold around it and over the road, that's the reason for it. Someone paid a lot of money to replace a lot of glass!

I shall sit down now.

[rfisher]

Is there a risk of this with glass TV stands?

Would make a lot of mess if that shattered and took the TV with it.

[mph1977]

rfisher said:

Is there a risk of this with glass TV stands?

Would make a lot of mess if that shattered and took the TV with it.

any toughened / tempered glass has the risk of doing this.

[Evoluzione]

mph1977 said:

rfisher said:

Is there a risk of this with glass TV stands?

Would make a lot of mess if that shattered and took the TV with it.

any toughened / tempered glass has the risk of doing this.

I don't think it does, I've never ever heard of or seen a car window do this, nor a house window come to think of it...

[paulwirral]

i had one shatter in my hands when installing it , never hit it on anything but it was at an angle when it exploded , ended up covered in glass and wondering what had just happened , worst thing was it was a favour job

[Obiwonkeyblokey]

We had a sliding board room door go about a week ago. Been in for 6 years and went for no reason. The 12 people in the boardroom were pretty shaken and one had to go to hospital to have his head glued. again no reason, it just went. scary stuff.

[Muncher]

silverthorn2151 said:

Anyway, if any of you know the building near Bank station that has had scaffold around it and over the road, that's the reason for it. Someone paid a lot of money to replace a lot of glass!

I shall sit down now.

Ah, interesting, I walk past there every day

[mph1977]

Evoluzione said:

mph1977 said:

rfisher said:

Is there a risk of this with glass TV stands?

Would make a lot of mess if that shattered and took the TV with it.

any toughened / tempered glass has the risk of doing this.

I don't think it does, I've never ever heard of or seen a car window do this, nor a house window come to think of it...

not many *windows* in houses are tempered and increasingly those that require safety glass are laminated rather than tempered

it's been suggested tempered glass for automotive / transport uses is made to a higher quality standard than random tempered glass for decorative purposes and consequently is less likely to fail in this way - also in the transport settings there isn;t in the much of bare edges etc ... there are documented occurances of both laminated and tempered windscreens failing when people do stupid stuff like attempt to defrost with boiling water ...

[Rickyy]

Evoluzione said:

I don't think it does, I've never ever heard of or seen a car window do this, nor a house window come to think of it...

Had a window in a Fiesta shatter on me when I was a kid, it had fallen out of the runner slightly and exploded when I wound it up.

[jjones]

also had one explode when fitting, again tilted when offering it up, didn't catch anything. made a nice bucket full of glass cubes though.

[bod27]

I have had this happen a few times in the last 15 years of selling shower doors.
Had a top of the range Daryl one do it a few weeks ago, after 5 years so its not just
cheap ones.
It is thermal shock , usually happens when no one is in the shower ( fortunately )
I was carrying with a colleauge a large panel from our heated showroom into an unheated store,
We got it half way across the door threshold and it exploded! On second holding 25kg of glass
The next holding fresh air! Came as a bit of a shock!

[Deva Link]

rfisher said:

Is there a risk of this with glass TV stands?

Would make a lot of mess if that shattered and took the TV with it.

Apparently it's not unusual on the stands that have a mid-way shelf which is only supported on its rear edge. Happened to one of our neighbours in the middle of the night - they said the bang was incredible.

Evoluzione said:

I don't think it does, I've never ever heard of or seen a car window do this, nor a house window come to think of it...

Well, it used to be common when windscreens were toughened, and you quite often hear of sun-roofs or rear hatch windows exploding randomly.

[jfrf]

had this happen to me when the bathroom was empty

the shower head had not been secured properly so in the night it had swung down and smashed the screen

[ooo000ooo]

rfisher said:

Is there a risk of this with glass TV stands?

Would make a lot of mess if that shattered and took the TV with it.

I had it happen a couple of years ago with a brand new stand and tv. I had just finished attaching the tv to the stand, dandered into the kitchen and hard a loud bang, ran back to the living room and the bottom bit of glass had shattered. Being laminated, it had stayed together & the tv was still upright. Needless to say the tv was taken off straight away as I didn't trust it to stay that way for too long!