Why has the P.V.B. laminated glass failed in the new Hong Kong Airport?
After reading in so many trade journals and newspapers of the massive problem with regard to the P.V.B. laminated glass in the new Hong Kong Airport, I decided to fly there to investigate the problem. As soon as I stepped off the airplane and saw some of the glass in question, it was obvious to me why this glass was failing so badly. The make up of the glass is Heat Superstrengthed/ P.V.B/ Heat Strengthened and most of the panels are in the region of 6 x 10. Heat strengthened and tempered glass goes through the process of high heat and fast cooling, creating waviness (warps) in the glass. Two pieces of such large glass put together cannot have an exact space between them. P.V.B. (the old original way to produce laminated glass) is an exact extruded plastic sheet put between two pieces of glass and bonded together by only heat and pressure. It does not take an engineer or someone with even a high I.Q. to realize that two wavy pieces of glass and an exact interlayer laminate seldom works
