Tinted glass refers to any glass that has been treated with a material such as a film or coating, which reduces its ability to transmit light. Glass can be tinted with various types of coating, which block and/or reflect different amounts and types of light, according to the needs and preferences of the consumer. Glare reduction is another important property of tinted glass. Glass is available in a number of tints which absorb a portion of the solar heat and block daylight. Tinting changes the color of the window and can increase visual privacy. The primary uses for tinted glass are reducing glare from the bright outdoors and reducing the amount of solar energy transmitted through the glass.
Advantages
Saves energy, controls solar heat and gives a striking visual effect
Meets the increasing demands for light in workplaces, creates attractive interiors and gives a feeling of spaciousness
Offers a practical, stylish alternative to traditional materials when used in screens, partitions and furniture at home or in the office
Gives designers the freedom to create attractive modern environments that are also economical and easy to maintain
Uses
Glass partitions
Windows and curtain walls
Spandrel glass
Balustrades
Skylights
Glass floors
Door glazing
Automotive glass
Decorative crafts
Available shades
Grey
Bronze
Blue
Green
Thickness (3 mm to 12 mm)
3.5mm
4mm
5mm
6mm
8mm
Tinted glazings are specially formulated to maximize their absorption across some or all of the solar spectrum and are often referred to as heat-absorbing.
What is tinted glass? During the manufacturing process, glass manufacturers add certain metallic oxides to the glass composition, which gives the glass a uniform and translucent color. For example, iron, cobalt or selenium oxide allows manufacturers to achieve various shades of blue, green, bronze or grey. The addition of metallic oxides does not change in any way the physical properties of the glass.
Body-tinted glass is normal float glass into whose melt colorants are added for tinting and solar-radiation absorption properties. This tinted glass saves energy and reduces heat penetration into buildings and gives a striking visual effect. Colored glass is an important architectural element for the exterior appearance of fa?ades.
. Glare
The production process of body-tinted glass is similar to that of float glass. The only variation is in the colorants mixed at the beginning with the standard raw materials. Body-tinted glass is produced when colorants and iron are introduced during the glass manufacturing process. Different additives may produce differently colored glasses. Bronze, dark grey and green are the commonly used tints.
The end product does not affect the basic structure of the glass itself, but does enhance its performance in relation to the (solar) electromagnetic spectrum. The color is homogenous throughout the thickness of the glass. The solar energy transmission, shading coefficient and visible light passing through the tinted glass will vary according to the color selected.
During the float glass melt process, chemical colorants can be added which tint the color and increase absorption from the sun. This helps minimize the solar radiation that enters a building, keeping it cool from the inside and protecting furniture from fading. As an example of the colorants used – to create a purple exterior, manganese is added, while pinks and reds can be produced from selenium.
Tinted glazings retain their transparency from the inside, although the brightness of the outward view is reduced and the color is changed. The most common colors are neutral gray, bronze, and blue-green, which do not greatly alter the perceived color of the view and tend to blend well with other architectural colors.
Traditional tinted glazing, bronze and gray, often force a trade-off between visible light and solar gain. There is a greater reduction in visible transmittance than in solar heat gain coefficient. This can decrease glare by reducing the apparent brightness of the glass surface, but it also diminishes the amount of daylight entering the room. For windows where daylighting is desirable, it may be more satisfactory to use a high-performance tint or coating along with other means of controlling glare. Tinted glazings can provide a measure of visual privacy during the day, when they reduce visibility from the outdoors. However, at night the effect is reversed and it is more difficult to see outdoors from the inside, especially if the tint is combined with a reflective coating.
To address the problem of reducing daylight with traditional tinted glazing, glass manufacturers have developed high-performance tinted glass that is sometimes referred to as spectrally selective. This glass preferentially transmits the daylight portion of the solar spectrum but absorbs the near-infrared part of sunlight. This is accomplished with special additives during the float glass process. Like other tinted glass, it is durable and can be used in both monolithic and multiple-glazed window applications.
Spectrally selective glazings have a light blue or light green tint and have higher visible transmittance values than traditional bronze- or gray-tinted glass, but have lower solar heat gain coefficients. Because they are absorptive, they are best used as the outside glazing in a double-glazed unit. They can also be combined with low-E coatings to enhance their performance further. High-performance tinted glazings provide a substantial improvement over conventional clear, bronze, and gray glass, and a modest improvement over the existing green and blue-green color-tinted glasses that already have some selectivity.
Tinted glazing is more common in commercial windows than in residential windows. In retrofit situations, when windows are not being replaced, tinted plastic film may be applied to the inside surface of the glazing. The applied tinted films provide some reduction in solar gain compared to clear glass but are not as effective as spectrally selective films or reflective glue-on films, and are not as durable as tinted glass.
Colorants and colors
Some of the most-used colorants and the colors they produce are listed below:
- Iron ? Green, brown, blue
- Manganese ? Purple
- Chromium ? Green, yellow, pink
- Vanadium ? Green, blue, grey
- Copper ? blue, green, red
- Cobalt ? blue, green, pink
- Nickel ? yellow, purple
- Titanium ? purple, brown
- Cerium ? yellow
- Selenium ? pink, red
- Gold ? Red
- Cadmium-
- Sulphide ? yellow
- Carbon & Sulphur? amber, brown
- Double-Glazed with High-Performance Tinted Glass
Tinted Glass is intended for universal application: Either as single or double glazing for a basic level of solar control, and even in furniture, interior design, partitions, etc. It is also the base glass for many high performance comfort glasses.
Doubly-glazed tinted glass reduces solar heat gain to below that of bronze or gray tint but has a visible transmittance closer to clear glass. High-performance or spectrally selective tinted glass products are typically light green or light blue. The tint has no effect on the U-factor but reduces solar heat gain. Doubly glazed tinted glass allows 51 percent of solar heat gain and 69 percent transmission of visible light.
Body tinted glass gives the added benefit of making a building look unique and contemporary, creating a lasting impression for business HQs.
Applications
The range of available thicknesses enable glass to be used where superior strength, greater spans, reduced deflection, higher daylight transmission and enhanced noise suppression are required.
Automobiles
One of the most common applications of tinted glass is in automobile windows. Almost all cars come with tinting at the top of the windshield to reduce solar glare when the sun is low in the sky. Apart from this, the windows of several cars are tinted either at the factory or as an aftermarket add-on by the consumer, to provide privacy to the car?s occupants, as also to reduce the build-up of heat in a car while it is parked outdoors.
Dwellings
Another popular use of tinted glass is in windows of homes and commercial buildings. Residential glass tinting is much easier to do than automotive tinting. It can even be done by the homeowner himself, with some practice. Tinted glass in homes serves many practical purposes, such as limiting ultraviolet light transmission through windows, and reducing overall heat gain inside the home by reflecting solar heat energy, thereby saving the homeowner money on air-conditioning.
CommercialBuildings
Tinted glass is also used in commercial buildings. Apart from keeping the interiors cooler, it gives the outside of a building a more uniform, aesthetically pleasing appearance. Depending on the creative use of different colors of tinted glass, the building can also take on a unique and interesting appearance while being insulated from the sun at the same time.
Advantage
- External or internal use
- High light reflectance and unique appearance
- Low light transmittance, improves visual comfort against direct sunlight
- Low light transmittance provides internal privacy, even in buildings with large glazed areas
Its attractive appearance also enhances the interior of a building:
- Reflective quality: creating a one-way observation effect in certain lighting conditions, transmitting light whilst screening vision.
- Beveled edges: to create a unique decorative effect (e.g. traditional internal doors)
Benfits
From an esthetic point of view, tinted glass gives buildings a distinguished and/or private look. It helps reduce heat gain, thus reducing air conditioning costs and enhancing occupants? well-being. It reduces ultraviolet radiation inside the building. Extremely versatile, this product can be utilized in commercial, residential and institutional projects. The wide variety of tinted glass allows for a multitude of visual effects. It can be combined with low emissivity (low-e) glass to improve thermal resistance (R-value) and overall performance of the insulated unit. Virtually unlimited combinations allow to modify glass performance. Tinted glass can be used in monolithic form as well as in double- or triple-glazed insulated glass units. It can also be sandblasted, silk-screened, shaped, laminated, beveled and enameled. Indoors, it can be used for its esthetic appeal and to complement the furniture and decoration. Its acoustic and mechanical performance is similar to that of standard glass of the same thickness and size. When tinted glass is combined in an insulated glass unit with spandrel glass in position 4, the resulting combination can create a colour effect similar to that of insulated units with tinted glass of a building in daylight. Considering the lower light transmittance associated with tinted glass, interior glare is also reduced while providing privacy from the outside. It can be assembled with Privavision integral blinds as well as smart glass, thus providing the ultimate comfort.
Tinted Glazings are specially formulated to maximize their absorption across some or all of the solar spectrum and are often referred to as heat absorbing.
Used for
- Window
- Door
- Partition
- Canopy
- Skylight
- Furniture