I would have thought the laminated glass would have been the
stronger just as it is with plywood’s.
I remember about a hunert years ago when I was stationed out in Sacramento, California I
parked my '60 Chevy outside a county western hangout and some drunken cowboy put a
beer bottle thru the rear window.Never felt comfortable with tempered glass after that.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses Denny.
Laminated glass is just plain old plate,laminated with a polycarbonate inter-layer.
Hence the reason it can be cut.
It also has better penetration resistance,without the shattering related to toughened glass.
Although the theory is that the small cubes of glass will ultimately do you less damage than big shards.
Some of my worst work related injuries are down to de-laminated glass,where the plate has separated from the inter-layer.
In the situation where someone is incapacitated due to a crash,it's also easier to penetrate tempered glass to administer that all important immediate first aid.
Tempering as I'm sure you know is merely a process of heating plate glass and rapidly cooling it using air jets to produce the final product.
This creates a surface tension,the pattern of stress lines which under certain light conditions or using polarised sunglasses can actually be seen in the glass.
It's usually pretty resistance to blunt force but it's Achilles heel is definitely small impact i.e. pointed objects.
A 1/4" thick tempered door glass such as the ones I have will easily support my not inconsiderable 220+lbs!
Try that with laminated glass......
