Ultrasonic evaluation of residual stresses in flat glass tempering:: Comparing experimental investigation and numerical modeling

In order to control residual stress distribution in glass, techniques based on the phenomenon of photoelasticity are efficient, though subject to the inherent limitations of all optical techniques. To mitigate these limitations, we exploit the phenomenon of acoustoelasticity to estimate residual stress distribution, using surface acoustic waves. Experimental results are obtained for a 6 mm thick soda-lime silicate flat glass plate that had been subjected to nonuniform thermal tempering and whose stress distribution is calculated using finite element modeling. The estimated stress distributions provided by our ultrasonic method compare quite well with the results from the modeling, from both the qualitative and quantitative points of view. (c) 2006 Acoustical Society of America.