KR20130037013A

KR20130037013A - Tempered glass and method for manufacturing the same

Info

Publication number: KR20130037013A
Application number: KR1020110101319A
Authority: KR
Inventors: 정기로
Original assignee: 에이피시스템 주식회사
Priority date: 2011-10-05
Filing date: 2011-10-05
Publication date: 2013-04-15

Abstract

PURPOSE: A manufacturing method for tempered glass is provided to implement strengthening treatment even on the sides of tempered glass by performing the strengthening treatment after forming line grooves on the surface of a glass disk. CONSTITUTION: A manufacturing method for tempered glass comprises the following steps of: (a) preparing a glass disk(100a); (b) forming line grooves(101) on the surface of the glass disk; (c) performing strengthening treatment on the surface of the glass disk; and (d) producing unit cell tempered glass(10) by cutting the strengthening treated glass disk(100) along the line grooves. At least one of the line grooves is formed on the upper surface and the bottom surface of the glass disk. The tempered glass has a glass body and a tempered region. The glass body comprises an upper surface, a bottom surface, and a side surface connecting the upper surface with the bottom surface. The tempered region is formed on at least one surface among the upper and the bottom surfaces and a part of the side surface. [Reference numerals] (AA) Preparing a glass disk; (BB) Forming line grooves; (CC) Strengthening treatment; (DD) Cutting; (EE) Producing unit cell strengthened glass;

Description

Tempered glass and method for manufacturing the same}

The present invention relates to a tempered glass and a method for producing tempered glass, a tempered glass used in a terminal display device and the like and a method of manufacturing such tempered glass.

Glass panels are widely used as components of most displays or electrical devices. From the cathode tube panel used in the manufacture of televisions and computer monitors, to the recent thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD), plasma display panel, organic electroluminescent (EL) It is widely used to flat panel display devices, such as these. As the size of glass panels used in flat panel display devices increases, weight reduction and thickness reduction to reduce thickness and weight are being conducted, reinforcement methods for compensating for structural weaknesses are being studied.

In general, as a method of strengthening the glass has been proposed a heat strengthening method and a chemical strengthening method. The heat strengthening method is a method of heating the surface of the glass and then quenching the surface using a coolant to strengthen the glass strength. In addition, the chemical strengthening method is a method of strengthening the glass by generating a stress on the surface of the glass by substituting the Na ⁺ ions in the glass with K ⁺ ions using a solution of KNO ₃ or a composition comprising the same.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a glass unit of the cell unit, and has the advantage that all six surfaces including the upper and lower surfaces and the side surface are strengthened, but the cell unit tempered glass 10 ), There is a problem in that the process time is increased, thereby increasing the cost.

As shown in FIG. 2 in order to solve the above process time and cost increase problem, the entire surface of the glass (100a) of the disc unit rather than the cell unit is reinforced and cut by cutting the cell unit tempered glass ( 100) has been presented. That is, as shown in Fig. 2 (a), the original glass 100a is provided, and as shown in Fig. 2 (b), the upper and lower surfaces of the original glass 100a are strengthened through thermal or chemical strengthening. . Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 2 (c), when the reinforced glass plate 100 is cut by using a cutting means such as a laser, the cut cell unit tempered glass 10 as shown in FIG. It can be acquired. However, in the case of the cell unit tempered glass 10 that has undergone the process of FIG. 2, only the upper and lower surfaces of the glass may be tempered, but the side may not be tempered. Therefore, there is a problem that the side is vulnerable to shock or external stimulus and easily broken by the side impact.

(Previous Document 1) Korean Patent Publication 10-2007-0105068

The technical problem of the present invention is to produce a tempered glass with improved tempered performance. In addition, the technical problem of the present invention is to be tempered not only in the upper and lower surfaces of the tempered glass but also in the side of the tempered glass. In addition, the technical problem of the present invention is to produce a tempered glass effective for mass production. In addition, the technical problem of the present invention is to provide a tempered glass manufacturing method that can reduce the production cost.

The manufacturing process of the tempered glass which is embodiment of this invention is a process of providing original glass, the process of forming a line groove in the surface of the said original glass, the process of strengthening the surface of the said original glass, and the tempered process Cutting the disc glass along the line grooves to produce unit cell tempered glass.

The line groove is formed at least one of the upper surface and the lower surface of the original glass.

Cutting along the line groove cuts the original glass using a laser.

Cutting along the line grooves includes applying a mask to an area excluding the line grooves of the strengthened original glass, etching the surface of the line grooves, and cutting the original glass along the etched line grooves. It includes the process of doing.

Moreover, the tempered glass which is embodiment of this invention is a glass main body which has an upper surface, a lower surface, and the side surface which connects an upper surface and a lower surface, and the tempered glass formed in a part of side surface, and at least one of the said upper surface and lower surface. Has an area.

The side surface has a vertical surface in the vertical direction, and the corner surface connecting the side from the upper surface, the reinforcement region is formed on the corner surface. The edge surface is formed of an inclined surface, a curved surface, a step surface.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, a tempered glass having improved tempered performance can be produced while performing a tempered process using the original. Moreover, according to embodiment of this invention, not only the upper and lower surfaces of tempered glass, but also a part of side surface can be made to be tempered. In addition, the reinforcement treatment using the original plate is advantageous for mass production, thereby reducing the production cost.

1 is a perspective view illustrating a process of reinforcing glass in a cell unit.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a process of fabricating a cell unit tempered glass by cutting the original glass after tempering treatment. FIG.
3 is a perspective view illustrating a process of manufacturing a tempered glass according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a perspective view showing a state in which line grooves are formed on both sides of an upper surface and a lower surface of the original glass according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a perspective view of a unit cell tempered glass produced when cut along a line groove formed on both sides of the upper and lower surfaces of the original glass according to an embodiment of the present invention.
6 is a cross-sectional view of the unit cell tempered glass finally produced by the above process.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described an embodiment of the present invention in more detail. However, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed below, but will be implemented in various forms, and only the embodiments are intended to complete the disclosure of the present invention and to those skilled in the art to fully understand the scope of the invention. It is provided to inform you. Wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout.

3 is a perspective view illustrating a process of manufacturing a tempered glass according to an embodiment of the present invention.

First, as shown to Fig.3 (a), the original glass 100a is provided. As the material of the disc glass 100a, various glass raw materials such as soda lime silicate may be used. In addition, the size of the original glass (100a) has a large size, in order to produce a plurality of unit cell glass by cutting the reinforced original glass. The unit cell glass may be used to manufacture terminal display devices, display devices of other electronic devices, cathode ray tubes, electric discharge devices, fluorescent lamps, and the like.

On the other hand, the disc glass 100a contains sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, sulfur, potassium, calcium, titanium, iron, chlorine, etc., in the case of manufacturing chemically strengthened glass, sodium (Na) component is chemically strengthened The sodium content of the disc glass is important because it is an essential component for ion substitution for. If the sodium content is too low, it is difficult to achieve the desired chemical strengthening due to insufficient ion substitution, and if the sodium content is too high, whitening of the glass occurs when the glass is used for a long time.

Thus, the sodium content suitable for chemical strengthening is on the order of about 12% to 18% by weight. If the sodium content is less than 12%, the insufficient amount of sodium ions that can be substituted makes it hard to sufficiently strengthen, and if the sodium content exceeds 18% by weight, breakage of the glass may occur during the strengthening treatment, which is not appropriate. If the sodium content is less than 12% by weight, additional treatment must be performed.

In addition, the disc glass 100a may be chemically strengthened according to the present invention when the thickness is 300 μm or more. However, when performing the heat strengthening, the original glass thickness is preferably 3mm. Disc glass larger than 3 mm can also be thermally or chemically strengthened. Therefore, since reinforcement occurs through the treatment of the surface of the glass, the upper limit of the thickness of the original glass is not meaningful, and the thickness of the original glass does not have great meaning as long as it has a thickness that is greater than that of heat or chemical strengthening.

After providing the original glass, it has a process of forming the line groove 101 in the surface of the original glass 100a as shown to FIG. 3 (b). The line grooves 101 form grooves on the surface as lines to be cut when the disc glass 100a is cut in order to produce unit cell tempered glass later. The line groove 101 is formed of a plurality of lines that cross each other horizontally and vertically, depending on the size of the unit cell tempered glass.

The line groove 101 may be grooved in a sharp shape, such as a V-shape, grooved in a curved shape, such as a U-shape, or grooved in various shapes, such as a square shape. In the case of V-shape, there is an advantage that can be easily cut at the time of cutting, in the case of U-shape or square shape has the advantage of having a straight side after cutting.

In addition, the depth in which the line grooves 101 are excavated allows the grooves to be formed to less than half the thickness of the original glass. This is because when the original glass exceeds 1/2 of the thickness of the original glass, the original glass may be unintentionally broken at the time of strengthening or transferring the original glass. Preferably, the line grooves are dug to the depth of 1/3 of the original glass thickness. Therefore, in the case of having a disc glass thickness of 300 mu m, it is preferable that the line groove is dug to a depth of 100 mu m on the surface.

In addition, the line groove 101 may be formed on only one surface of the upper surface or the lower surface of the disk glass 100a. Both sides may be formed. By forming line grooves on both the upper surface and the lower surface of the disc glass, the reinforced surface of the side of the unit cell tempered glass which is later cut can be increased.

On the other hand, after the line groove 101 is formed, as shown in FIG. 3 (c), the surface of the original glass is reinforced to have a process of manufacturing the reinforced glass 100. Since the reinforcement treatment is performed on the surface of the original glass, it can be seen that the reinforcement treatment is performed even deep into the line groove 101. Therefore, when the disc glass is later cut along the line groove, the cut side can be strengthened.

The reinforcement treatment method can be largely made in two ways, one being heat strengthening and the other being chemical strengthening. Hereinafter, as the reinforcement treatment method according to an embodiment of the present invention, an example of the thermal reinforcement method and the chemical reinforcement method will be briefly described, but there may be various reinforcement treatment embodiments.

The heat strengthening method is a method of heating the surface of glass and quenching the surface using a coolant to strengthen the glass strength. For example, a mixture containing 30 mol% cesium nitrate (CsNO3) and 70 mol% alumina (Al2O3) is coated on the surface of a glass disc with a line groove. At this time, the alumina is used powder having an average size of the particles of about 0.1㎛.

A drying process of evaporating moisture from the surface of the glass disc is performed to form a solid salt-containing layer on the glass surface. After the drying process, the glass disc is introduced into an electric furnace and heat treated according to a set temperature-time schedule. The temperature-time schedule first heated from 20 ° C. to 450 ° C. for 60 minutes. Next, 450 ° C. is maintained for 120 minutes and then cooled from 450 ° C. to 20 ° C. for 60 minutes. After the heat treatment is performed, a glass diffusion plate may be washed to form a surface diffusion layer on the glass surface to be strengthened.

The chemical strengthening method is a method using the principle of forming a compressive stress layer on the surface of a glass panel through ion exchange treatment. Chemical strengthening methods include alkali metal removal on the surface and alkali metal exchange. The alkali metal exchange system includes a high temperature type ion exchange method and a low temperature type ion exchange method.

In the case of the high temperature ion exchange method, the glass is heat-treated at a temperature higher than the transition temperature of the glass, and Na ⁺ ions in the glass are replaced with K ⁺ ions using a solution of KNO ₃ or a composition containing the same, and then the surface of the glass is reheated. It is a method of strengthening the glass by generating a stress by inducing a crystallized layer having a low coefficient of thermal expansion. Unlike the low temperature ion exchange method, when the glass is immersed in an alkali salt melt maintained at about 500 ° C. below the slow cooling temperature of the glass, exchange of alkali ions in the glass and alkali ions in the melt causes compressive stress on the glass surface. It is a method of forming.

After the original glass with the line grooves formed as described above is tempered by thermal or chemical strengthening, the original glass is cut along the line grooves 101 to be used in the display terminal as shown in FIG. Tempered glass 10 (unit cell tempered glass) can be finally produced. The cutting process of the tempered disc glass 100 is of great importance for chemical strengthening, and a cutting method that does not give stress by heat is preferable.

When the strength of the tempered treatment on the original glass is weakened, cutting by water jet may be possible. Water jet is a method of cutting glass by spraying water mixed with high pressure water and an abrasive and is suitable because it generates little heat. However, the surface of the glass may be scratched due to the scattering of the abrasive, and fine fracture may occur on the cut surface due to the impact of the abrasive, so that the fracture site may remain even after polishing. In order to completely remove the ruptured portion of the cut surface can be widened the polishing width. In addition, the above problem can be solved to some extent by using a small abrasive.

However, in the case of water jet, it may not be possible to cut the original glass, the strength of the strengthening treatment is stronger, it may be inappropriate. Therefore, in the case of the disc glass in which the intensity | strength of the strengthening process became strong, cutting using a laser can be performed. In the case of laser cutting, the cutting surface is very clean and there is an excellent advantage that there are few fracture sites. However, high temperature (about 1,100 ℃) occurs during laser cutting, and since the temperature is higher than the chemical strengthening temperature and close to the melting temperature of the glass, the cut surface is cured to the level of thermal strengthening, and the chemically strengthened disc during laser cutting There is a risk of glass breaking. If the external force is applied to the tempered glass surface due to the surface hardness and internal residual stress after the strengthening, there is a fear that breakage easily occurs. To prevent this, a pretreatment process for the line grooves can be added before laser cutting. Therefore, when laser cutting is performed, a pretreatment process for removing or minimizing the thermal effect of the cutting surface due to high temperature may be added.

On the other hand, in the case of laser cutting, there may be a risk of breaking the chemically strengthened original glass due to high temperature cutting, it is possible to perform the cutting using the mask etching. That is, in the case of the chemically strengthened original glass, a mask is applied to the surface of the original glass except for the line groove, and the cured chemical component on the surface of the line groove is etched and removed. Thereafter, the disc glass is cut along the etched line grooves. The cutting of the etched line groove can be performed through a water jet, a laser, or the like because the hardened component is lost.

On the other hand, after cutting the original glass, it is necessary to remove the micro cracks and heat affected areas generated on the cut surface, and the removal of such micro cracks and heat affected areas has a significant effect on reducing the uniformity and defect rate of the quality of the manufactured tempered glass. Go crazy. It is also possible to use a cutting method other than the cutting method described above, but in any case polishing of the cutting surface must be carried out essentially to remove fine cracks and heat affected areas.

On the other hand, it can be seen that not only the upper surface and the lower surface of the unit cell tempered glass 10 of FIG. This is because the reinforcement treatment is performed on the surface of the original glass, and thus the reinforcement treatment is performed deep into the line groove, and eventually, the reinforcement treatment is performed even to the side where the cut groove is cut along the line groove.

On the other hand, when the line groove 101 is formed in both the upper surface and the lower surface of the original glass 100a as shown in FIG. 4, the upper and lower sides of the side surface of the final unit cell tempered glass as shown in FIG. 5 are strengthened. Can be.

6 is a cross-sectional view of the unit cell tempered glass finally produced by the above process.

The unit cell tempered glass has a glass body having an upper surface, a lower surface, and side surfaces connecting the upper surface and the lower surface. It also has a portion of the side and a reinforcement region formed on at least one of the upper and lower surfaces. The side surface includes a vertical surface A in the vertical direction, and an edge surface B connecting the side surfaces from the upper surface, and a reinforcement region is formed on the edge surface B. Corner surface (B) may be formed differently according to the fine shape of the line groove, V-shaped line grooves have an inclined surface when piled, U-shaped line grooves, curved surface, square line grooves In the case of the pile is formed into a stepped surface. In addition, the height (H1) of the edge surface (B) is formed to less than 1/2 of the overall height (H) side.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the accompanying drawings and the preferred embodiments described above, the present invention is not limited thereto but is limited by the following claims. Accordingly, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the following claims.

10: cell unit tempered glass 100a: disc glass
100: tempered disc glass 101: line groove

Claims

Preparing a disc glass;
Forming a line groove on the surface of the disc glass;
Reinforcing the surface of the disc glass;
Cutting the tempered original glass along the line grooves to produce unit cell tempered glass;
Tempered glass manufacturing method comprising a.

The tempered glass production method according to claim 1, wherein the line groove is formed at least one of an upper surface and a lower surface of the original glass.

The method of claim 1, wherein the line groove is grooved as at least one of a V shape, a U shape, and a square shape.

The tempered glass production method according to claim 1, wherein the line groove is formed with a groove less than 1/2 of the original glass thickness.

The tempered glass manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein the tempered treatment is performed by any one of a thermal tempered treatment and a chemical tempered treatment.

The tempered glass production method according to claim 1, wherein the cutting along the line grooves comprises cutting the original glass using a laser.

The method of claim 6, wherein a pretreatment step of removing the heat effect of the cut surface due to the high temperature is performed before the disc glass is cut using the laser.

The method of claim 1, wherein the cutting along the line groove,
Applying a mask to a region excluding line grooves of the tempered original glass;
Etching the surface of the line groove;
Cutting the disc glass along the etched line grooves;
Tempered glass manufacturing method comprising a.

The method of claim 8, wherein the cutting of the original glass along the etched line grooves comprises cutting the original glass using at least one of a water jet or a laser.

A glass body having an upper surface, a lower surface, and side surfaces connecting the upper surface and the lower surface;
Tempered glass having a portion of a side surface and a strengthening region formed on at least one of the upper and lower surfaces.

The tempered glass according to claim 10, wherein the side surface includes a vertical surface in the vertical direction and an edge surface connecting the side surface to the upper surface, and a tempered region is formed on the edge surface.

The tempered glass of claim 11, wherein the edge surface is formed of an inclined surface, a curved surface, and a stepped surface.

The tempered glass of claim 11, wherein the height of the edge surface is less than half of the total height of the side surfaces.

The tempered glass according to claim 10, wherein the tempered glass is formed by cutting the tempered original glass along the line groove after forming a line groove on the surface of the original glass and reinforcing the entire surface.

The tempered glass according to claim 10, wherein the tempered glass is tempered to the entire surface of the upper and lower surfaces and the depth of the line grooves on the side surfaces.