Spontaneous Glass Breakage Shower Door

The breakage was never a crack that progressed into pieces of glass tinkling to the floor.

Spontaneous glass breakage shower door.

Ironically the center tension zone engineered into tempered glass through the quenching process is also what makes it so vulnerable to catastrophic breakage. Replace any deformed or broken grommets or plastic washers. The explosion was spontaneous. The next minute it was fragmented into minute pieces and the noise of the shattering was very loud sometimes described as deafening.

Don t slam the door. There can be several causes or reasons for spontaneous breakages in tempered glass like impact load poor glazing glass to glass contact glass to metal contact very hard setting blocks etc. One minute the shower door was completely intact. In the case of spontaneous glass breakage there are no cracks in the glass to notice or fallen pieces on the shower floor.

The number two reason would be through inclusions microscopic imperfections that grow into a larger crack internally to the pressure layers. Don t let kids hang on towel bars. This is problematic since there are no warning signs and an apparently intact shower door may simply break into pieces suddenly. Despite that material s high levels of strength and capacity to meet safety glazing requirements it is uniquely vulnerable to these types of failures.

The incidents of spontaneous glass breakage in chicago las vegas austin texas and toronto occurred exclusively with tempered glass. The number one reason glass doors break is because of some form of damage to the glass around the edges of that door meshulam said. A far less common but often cited cause of spontaneous glass breakage is nickel sulfide nis inclusions in tempered glass. Any of these can result in creating a concentrated point load on the edge or corner of the glass.

If there are more than one bumper that the shower door hits adjust the door so they are impacted. Treat the shower doors and enclosure gently. Those pressure layers eventually cause the glass to just shatter. Homeowners who have experienced this have described the sound as deafening.

I was glad that the curtain was closed because it just burst.