Spontaneously exploding shower glass

[DavidFrancis]

We had a pane of glass "explode" in the night. Explode is almost the right word as there was glass in the far corner of the room, about 8 ft away. Any one come across this before? There's stuff on the web, but it mostly looks to be on US web sites. Oddly, neither of us heard anything - must have both been well asleep.

Now need to divine who made the shower enclosure as there's no markings on it (and it was fitted before our time).

[DeeJunFan]

Never heard of this with showers before but it's happened to me many times with latte glasses. No wiser as to the reason though

 

 

[Mikey_1980]

It happened to me just before we moved out of our old house, it is the toughened glass, designed to fragment rather than big shards.  If someone has banged the door too hard, leant something on it, sudden temperature changes etc can cause it to go with a bang. Ours was the hinge breaking and possibly putting too much stress on the screw hole as I took it off, leant it against the wall safely and then went pop in my hands.  Our shower screen was from Merlyn, they were great as they give a lifetime warranty and swapped over the entire enclosure within 48 hours as the one we had was no longer available.

So it might be worth looking out where you got it from as they may replace free of charge.

With that service I recived from Merlyn I have gone for Merlyn shower screens and trays in all of the bathrooms in our new house.

[Nickfromwales]

Hitting, or more specifically STRIKING the glass during installation creates a ticking time bomb. It may also have been caused by the house naturally settling after buildings work. Was it a fixed, framed piece of glass? 

[ToughButterCup]

7 minutes ago, DeeJunFan said:

[...] but its happened to me many times with latte glasses.[...]

 

Well, if you will drink latte from a glass, unlike us he-men who drink it from a trough, what do you expect?

[DeeJunFan]

17 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

Well, if you will drink latte from a glass, unlike us he-men who drink it from a trough, what do you expect?

It was in a professional capacity unfortunately.  So I was always making them for other people.

And no-one ever said thanks!

 

[DavidFrancis]

Having gently knocked out the rest of the glass I can see it didn't "explode" before as this time the glass also went all over the place.

And yes, Nick, it was a framed pane.

This would be a right pain in the butt (perhaps in more than one sense) if it happened whilst you were in the shower and there was no one else around. You'd have to try to make a path out with, probably, not much to clear the path with.

[TerryE]

The mechanics of toughened glass is best demonstrated with the Prince Rupert's drop.  When it does fail then the very tensions which give that toughened strength become destructive and result in catastrophic failure.  As to what tiny flaw actually triggered the failure, it's time to consult the Chinese philosopher Fook Noes.

 

[Onoff]

There was  a few years back in the City of London a commercial office building that had to have every pane of glass replaced.  First a panel exploded one weekday lunchtime luckily missing everybody below. They erected a fly scaffold around the perimeter and from memory another panel went bang before they replaced the lot. (I have btw some peripheral involvement through work with the companies involved).

What can happen is that during the floating process of specifically tempered glass tiny bits of nickel react with the heat source gases used to melt the glass. This forms very tiny lumps of nickel sulphide.  They're known as "inclusions". The toughened glass is exactly that, made something like 5 or 6 times stronger by its tempering process. It's generally great and as tough as. The issue is that the nickel sulphide isn't stable and for want of a better word "grows". It is in essence a stress point and if within the middle ('ish) of the glass where it's highly stressed can trigger it to shatter. You can order heat treated strengthened glass

The higher end glass makers screen their base materials to try and exclude nickel from the mix. They also use various screening tools like magnets to drag out contaminants. They even have rules about what tools can be on site in case you inadvertently bring in some nickel. (As an aside we're working in a food plant at the mo where tools containing wood are banned).

Saying that it may not be an inclusion issue at all. I've seen tempered glass accidentally banged into a wall and go bang like a sparkly waterfall coming down. Again it can be from a "shell". Sometimes you'll see a bit of damage on the glass like a concave "dent" - called a shell. Get a bit of movement or stress in the frame due to expansion and the panel can go. In my experience they generally crack rather than go bang. Biggest panels I get involved in replacing go about 540kg....always on a Sunday and always at double bubble!  Got some pics somewhere.

[jack]

I was told that part of the reason toughened glass is expensive is that the process for making it isn't perfect, and some pieces of glass don't survive it!

[Tennentslager]

8 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

Well, if you will drink latte from a glass, unlike us he-men who drink it from a trough, what do you expect?

Real (work)men drink tea

[Tennentslager]

We had a glass table top from IKEA do this in one of our offices.

Was an old style trestle with a thick glass top. In the past I've stood on them to change a light bulb!

Colleagues came in in the morning and the whole room was covered as if the thing exploded.

 

[SteamyTea]

I borrowed a car and had the toughened windscreen shatter.  Not fun at 80 MPH on a wet Marlow Bypass.

We used to fit toughened glass doors to all out saunas and steamrooms.  Some got broke in the process.

[ProDave]

I recall seeing a you tube video of someone trying to smash a toughened glass shower panel. He hit it very hard with a hammer and nothing happened. He then stood back to think about what to do next, and some time later it just exoploded.