Corning has announced that its ultra-thin, ultra-strong glass for electronic displays, is now available for the architectural market. Gorilla Glass can be used as a lightweight solution for building façades and overhead canopies, as well as triple-glazed windows, hurricane windows, decorative glass wall structures and greenhouses.
Gorilla Glass, Corning’s well-known ultra-thin, ultra-strong glass for electronic displays, is now available for the architectural market.
“A broad range of applications could benefit from Corning Gorilla Glass, the same glass that is used on more than one billion of the world’s most sophisticated electronic devices,” says George Wildeman, business director for the Automotive Glazing & Advanced Laminates division of Corning. “Corning Gorilla Glass allows designers to replicate the experience of a smartphone in real-world environments through touch capabilities, integrated displays and beautiful lighting systems.”
Gorilla Glass features an alkali-aluminosilicate composition that allows for a deep layer of chemical strengthening. The result is a thin, lightweight and damage-resistant glass product that continues to offer excellent visual quality, according to company officials.
“Because Gorilla Glass is lightweight and tough, it gives architects more design freedom in both interior and exterior applications,” Wildeman says. The product can be laminated to various plastics or decorative substrates for a durable surface, and can be used with bent surfaces.
Potential architectural applications on the interior include wall systems, area lighting panels, and elevator walls and ceilings. “When used inside elevators, the thinness of Gorilla Glass reduces cab weight, creating opportunities for energy savings. … Its damage resistance [also] helps maintain the appearance of the cab and reduces maintenance,” Wildeman says.
On the exterior, Gorilla Glass can be used as a lightweight solution for building façades and overhead canopies. Other exterior applications for laminates with Corning Gorilla Glass include triple-glazed windows, hurricane windows, decorative glass wall structures and greenhouses. “We can also bend thin laminates to desired curved shapes, resulting in an undistorted reflected image,” Wildeman says.
The glass is supplied in individual sheets that can be cut to size and chemically strengthened by qualified finishers. It can be produced in individual size sheets up to approximately 2 meters by 1.5 meters, in a range of thicknesses, including 0.55mm to 1.5mm. The standard thicknesses are 0.7mm and 1.0mm. The glass can be bent using cold forming or traditional hot forming techniques, such as gravity, sag and press bending. When laminated, Gorilla Glass meets US standards for indoor use, including CPSC 16 CFR 1201, ANSI Z97.1-2009, and ASTM E84.