Abstract
RECENTLY we conducted a precision tension (‘Instron’) strength study of two glass fibre fabrics exposed to several different environments. The resulting data are summarized in Fig. 1. When one considers a logical basis for the experimental data, it appears that the water deterioration of glass is a chemical solution process. There is a two-fold evidence for this view. First, the higher pH exposures of the glass fibres give rise to a greater weakening than with a simple water exposure. This agrees well with the observed solubility versus pH relations of typical glasses, and it implies that the molal activation energies for glass fracture in a glass system with microcracks present therein are lower in the high pH solutions1,2. Such high pH solutions might be found useful to accelerate or expedite glass fractures where this slight solution effect can be tolerated. Second, the drying out of the glass fibres after exposure did not serve to restore the full original strength of the glass fibres. If only a physical adsorption were involved a full reversibility could be expected.
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References
Stanworth, J. E., ‘Physical Properties of Glass’, 156 (Oxford University Press, 1950).
ibid., 114.
Morey, G. W., ‘The Properties of Glass’, 330 (Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York, 1954).
Ref. 1, 95.
Ref. 1, 92.
Ref. 2, 330.
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RADD, F., OERTLE, D. Strength Impairment Mechanism of Glass in Aqueous Systems. Nature 184, 976 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/184976a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/184976a0
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