Can you imagine a life without perfect glass? I know I can’t, and that is why I attended a special event on “Float Glass Inspection in the 21 Century”, so as to find out what the glass manufacturing industry does to deliver flawless glass for my car, house, touch screen, … , just to name a few of my indispensable possessions.
The event was held at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston on 2nd March 2016, and organised by the IET Vision and Imaging Technical and Professional Network. With Simon Aldred as the speaker who is from a world leading glass manufacturer (NSG, formerly Pilkington), and who has a lifelong interest and industrial expertise in light and glass, the talk was highly informative and insightful, from the history of glass to an amazing range of everyday technological applications, from some cool optical phenomena to awesome imaging techniques, and from float glass invented by Pilkington as large-scale mass production to rapid detection of tiny defects that are invisible to the naked eye.
Glass is known notoriously as one of the most challenging materials to inspect because of reflection and transparency. Simon provided a comprehensive coverage of the state-of-the-art vision and imaging technology used to inspect not only common glass defects, but also many new types of defects emerging in automotive glass with a complex and curved shape as well as electrical components. I have come away with an appreciation and understanding of the pivotal role of vision and imaging in glass manufacturing, from process monitoring and control to part inspection, and the need to evolve with future products in order to meet increasingly demanding user requirements.
I have a new perspective when I look out through the glass now. I know there is a 25% probability that the glass has been inspected by the system developed by Simon, and that the inspection system can make 100 million measurements a second over a large glass sheet of several meters wide travelling at 0.5 metre per second, with a thickness resolution of 0.01 mm and defect size down to 0.2 mm.
Simon has kindly made parts of his powerpoint presentation available, and I hope you will enjoy his powerpoint slides as much as I did of his excellent presentation.
Leave a comment below and tell us how you think we might use glass in the future.