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Glaston Corporation and Softsolution, an Austria-based manufacturer of quality assurance systems for the glass industry, have announced a collaboration to create quality inspection solutions for tempering lines.
The goal of the partnership is to establish a new industry standard in glass quality, and the companies aim to develop new solutions to benefit high-quality glass processors, according to the announcement.
Glaston has been focusing mainly on the issue of anisotropy, which led to the company’s iLooK Distortion to launch in 2010 and iLooK Anisotropy in 2017.
“Our extensive tempering process expertise is the basis for the current partnership. By joining forces, Glaston and Softsolution can take advantage of the strong measurement equipment know-how of both companies to develop more and more advanced quality measurement systems for tempered glass. This will allow us to bring to our glass processing customers more sophisticated solutions faster,” says Riku Färm, product manager for Glaston iLooK.
Glaston’s tempering lines require automated quality measurement at more positions across the line.
The first joint project addresses anisotropy, a glass quality issue visible after the tempering process. Glaston will utilize Softsolution’s LineScanner anisotropy inspection technology as part of its iLooK quality measurement system to deal with this issue.
“By using the anisotropy measurement competencies of both companies, the partnership will open up new opportunities to further develop these systems,” says Riku.
AGNORA, a Canadian fabricator of oversized architectural glass, uses LineScanner with Glaston’s technology to measure and control anisotropy in glass today.
Louis Moreau, head of technology and innovation at AGNORA, was chair of the task group working on the ASTM C1901-21 standard development.
“Variables such as time of the year, humidity, glass thickness, tempering furnace performance and even operators can change the characteristics of heat-treated glass day to day,” Moreau says.
According to Moreau, the invention and wider adoption of glass scanners capable of mapping retardation values have opened the door for more exacting measurements of the optical properties of tempered glass.
