It’s typically just really really thick. New Zealand’s Sky Tower in Auckland has 4cm (just under 2 inches) thick “structural” to glass, then two further, thinner layers on top of that that can easily be replaced if they happen to crack.
Glass is just like any other construction material, to hold a given amount of weight requires a minimum thickness. You think of aluminum as very sturdy but aluminum foil will hold no weight, meanwhile 8 inch thick glass would hold a tremendous amount of weight. Most glass you see in daily life is thin because it is used for drinking glasses (very thin) or windows (thicker but still thin). It is far from a good load bearing construction material but has the feature of clarity making it a potentially beautiful construction material so it is used even where it is not ideal for its aesthetic potential.
You can poke a hole through a single sheet of paper; you can’t poke a hole through 500 stacked sheets of paper. Thick things are tougher than thin things.
A lot of effort has gone into glass to make it do various things really well. In addition to being thicker than you think, the glass they use for that has been engineered to be really strong, and probably to stay together even if it breaks.
If you want to get an idea how far they have pushed glass, look up security glass or blast proof glass.
I dropped a small quarter inch thick piece of glass about 12 inch x 12inch down 15 feet to concrete and it didn’t do anything to it, glass can be strong as hell.
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obvious answer, it is strong enough not to.
glass is steonger than you think, and not every hard clear substance is glass, some are even tougher ploymers that just happen to look like glass.
It’s typically just really really thick. New Zealand’s Sky Tower in Auckland has 4cm (just under 2 inches) thick “structural” to glass, then two further, thinner layers on top of that that can easily be replaced if they happen to crack.
Glass is just like any other construction material, to hold a given amount of weight requires a minimum thickness. You think of aluminum as very sturdy but aluminum foil will hold no weight, meanwhile 8 inch thick glass would hold a tremendous amount of weight. Most glass you see in daily life is thin because it is used for drinking glasses (very thin) or windows (thicker but still thin). It is far from a good load bearing construction material but has the feature of clarity making it a potentially beautiful construction material so it is used even where it is not ideal for its aesthetic potential.
“It’s really thick”.
That’s about it.
You can poke a hole through a single sheet of paper; you can’t poke a hole through 500 stacked sheets of paper. Thick things are tougher than thin things.
A lot of effort has gone into glass to make it do various things really well. In addition to being thicker than you think, the glass they use for that has been engineered to be really strong, and probably to stay together even if it breaks.
If you want to get an idea how far they have pushed glass, look up security glass or blast proof glass.
It’s engineered to be strong enough.
Several thick pieces of glass, laminated together for extra strength.
I dropped a small quarter inch thick piece of glass about 12 inch x 12inch down 15 feet to concrete and it didn’t do anything to it, glass can be strong as hell.