There Are Different Kinds Of Safety Glass In Your Car
There are different kinds of safety glass in your car, and they aren't like the glass in your windows at home. They are there for specific reasons and because they function in specific ways.
Safety Glass
Safety glass is glass that has been treated in some way, usually by extra heating or through some kind of chemical process. There may also be additional steps in making the glass. The glass is designed to be harder to break and to withstand things that most glass wouldn't handle. You can find the safety glass not only in your car but also in places like skyscrapers. For your car, there are a couple of different kinds of safety glass.
Tempered Glass
The glass in your side windows is tempered glass. That means that the glass has gone through specific heating cycles as well as chemical treatments to make it stronger and tougher. Those treatments will put the outside of the glass into compression while the inside of the glass is under tension. That means that the outside of the glass really wants to push inwards and the inside of the glass to pull sideways, think of something like a power line that has been pulled tight. That line is under tension. The combination of compression and tension means that when the glass does break, it turns into chunks instead of shards. The shards could hurt you if they were to break, but the chunks are designed to not have the same sharp edges and to be less damaging to you. If you have ever broken a glass baking dish, you have seen the chunks that it breaks into, that's because the glass goes through the same process.
Laminated Glass
The glass in your windshields is laminated glass. With this kind of glass, the glass itself will have gone through treatments to make it stronger, but it goes through an additional step. That step is to stick it to another piece of glass. The lamination is two or more pieces of glass that have a strong adhesive or resin in between them. The whole thing is put under pressure or heated so that it will stick together. The reason for laminated glass is that when the glass breaks, generally only one layer will break. This means that no pieces will fall on you in the car. The broken pieces are stuck to the other layer. Imagine putting a piece of tape on glass and then breaking it. The broken pieces will stick to the tape instead of falling.
Your car has a lot of safety features. The safety glass in your windows is just one of those features. For more information, contact your local auto glass repair service.
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