Glass and Ceramics

The latest formed glass container will only possess a really small fraction of its theoretical strength. this means damage occurs on the surface of the glass melt in the forming process because of glass to mould contact and hot glass handling. It'd be expected that any damage inflicted on the surface of a glass article during manufacture would heal at the elevated manufacturing temperatures used, however, this doesn't appear to be true. Therefore, the true mechanism by glass strength is reduced during forming must be fully understood, and the work presented during this thesis marks this problem.