Toughening may be a process where the glass is heated at high temperatures to form it stronger and more resistant to breakage. This process creates a balance within the product’s internal stresses, in order that when the glass is broken, it might crumble into tiny granular chunks instead of breaking into sharp, jagged pieces. Toughened glass may be a variety of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass.
Toughened glass is a type of soda-lime-silica glass with a sheet thickness 4-12 mm. The sheet has a central tensile stress of 500-1200 kg/cm2 and a ratio of surface compressive stress to central tensile stress of 2:1 to 4:1. The article is toughened by heat exchange with an oil (or chilled air) in which these are maintained from 0.01–0.07 % liquid. The boiling point liquid may be an organic liquid such as carbon tetrachloride, methanol, benzene, toluene, trimethyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol or Xylene etc.
The current market size of flat glass industry in India is 1.32 MN tonne annually. Indian glass industry consists as elsewhere of a number of distinct segments: architecture (45% market share), automotive (15% market share), and value added glass (10% market share), mirrors and furniture (15% market share), respectively. The total market of glass valued at Rs. 340 bn in 2015. The industry is growing at around 15% per annum. Consumption per capita of glass in India is only 1.2 kg compared 15 kg in China, 9 kg in developed countries and 35 kg in the USA. The global glass market size was valued at USD 68.71 billion in 2014. It is expected to attain a CAGR of nearly 7.1% from 2015 to 2022. Increasing use of flat glass in photovoltaic modules, solar panels and e-glass owing to rising need for clean energy is anticipated to be one of the key trends escalating market growth. Toughened Glass Market size was over USD 24.5 billion in 2016 and industry expects consumption above 4.3 billion square meters by 2024.
Increasing demand for furniture including table tops, shelves and cabinets and other interior applications should stimulate toughened glass market size. Toughened glass market size from furniture applications should witness significant gains up to 2024 because of increasing demand for innovative furniture designs for interior applications accompanied with improving lifestyle patterns of consumers.
Few Indian major players are as under
Atul Glass Inds. Ltd
Floatglass India Ltd.
Friends Glass & Glazing Pvt. Ltd.
Saint-Gobain Sekurit India Ltd.
Gold Plus Glasses India Ltd.
Sisecam Flat Glass India Pvt. Ltd.
Triveni Glass Ltd
Triplex Glass Works Pvt. Ltd
