Traditionally, if a strong window is desired, the popular opinion is to heat-treat glass to mechanically strengthen it.  While heat-treating glass will indeed strengthen the material, you may be putting a retail storefront at risk of a break-in.

Why? The improvements in structural interlayers such as Kuraray’s SentryGlas substantially increases the structural power of architectural glass.  The important distinction is that as glass becomes less rigid, the interlayer cannot maintain the glass’s structure.  In other words, a broken lite of annealed glass married to SentryGlas will maintain its form as opposed to a fully-tempered lite which breaks into small pebbles and can soften and fail.

Fully tempered monolithic is a safety glass but it does not stop burglars to do a quick break & grab. Only laminated glass can give you peace of mind, not only for your customer, but also your merchandise safety.

Find out more in this in-depth analysis by Louis Moreau, Head of Innovation and Technology at AGNORA.

Heat treated and fully tempered architectural glass both play important roles in retail applications.  If heat-treated architectural glass is a specification, consider these conditions:

HEAT TREATED

• x2 strength of annealed glass
• breaks in large islands
• is effective at reducing break-ins when paired with an interlayer. The large islands allow the interlayer to continue to support the architectural glass lite

FULLY TEMPERED

• x4 strength of annealed glass
• breaks in small pebbles and is very safe for the public
• should be used when a stronger structural glass is called for and with a laminate to provide SOME theft protection