Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the sparkly dept.

A new Fraunhofer technique makes it possible to bend sheet glass into complex or unconventional shapes with the help of laser beams. This opens up a whole new range of potential products for architects and designers. The researchers are taking advantage of a particular attribute glass has of becoming viscous and therefore malleable when exposed to high temperatures. Precise calculations and gravity do the rest.

A laser beam moves across the surface of the glass with absolute precision, following a preprogrammed if still invisible path. Every now and then, the beam stops, changes position and moves on. The four-millimeter-thick sheet of glass is in an oven that has been preheated to just below the temperature at which glass begins to melt. The glass now starts to soften at the points the laser has heated and, thanks to gravity, the heated portions sink as if they were made of thick honey. Once the desired form has been achieved, the laser is switched off and the glass solidifies again. The result is a fascinating shape with bends featuring small radii, waves and round protrusions.

This is how lasers can be used to help bend sheet glass in a process developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg im Breisgau. The whole process is based on a particular physical characteristic of the material; unlike metal, for instance, glass does not have a definitive melting point at which it liquefies. Instead, when exposed to a certain temperature range, it softens and becomes malleable.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 04 2017, @02:38AM (3 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday May 04 2017, @02:38AM (#504126) Journal

    First thought.. lenses.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Kromagv0 on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:14PM (2 children)

    by Kromagv0 (1825) on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:14PM (#504278) Homepage

    Doubtful. You would have all sorts of optical artifacts from the flow and you would still have to grind and polish the lens afterwards. For optics you would be better casting something close to the shape you want cooling in controlled conditions and the doing the fine grinding and polishing to finish the lens. As the summary states for architecture and design this seems like a neat way to create complex glass shapes and do it with more control than before.

    --
    T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 05 2017, @12:11AM (1 child)

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 05 2017, @12:11AM (#504603) Journal

      My thinking about lenses were not standard ones but applications that requires some really weird shapes. The main point being that surfaces are smooth and lasers are a precision tool.