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Glass Tubes

The term “glass tubing” refers to those hollow cylinders that are made of glass of any kind. Typically, the glass used to make glass tubing is of a silicate origin and it may or may not contain additives. Common glass types used include: soda lime, quartz glass, flint, lead glass, borosilicate and aluminosilicate. Sometimes, glass tubing may be made from safety glass like laminated glass or tempered glass. Glass tubes, also known as glass cylinders or glass rods, have applications in countless fields, including industries and markets related to consumer goods and retail, electrochemistry, electronics, industrial manufacturing, laboratory work and scientific research, pharmaceutical packaging and lighting. Glass tubing is also useful in interior design, product presentation and for use on pneumatic conveyor systems.

Once upon a time, glass tubing could only be created by a basic form of glass blowing called mouth blowing. While mouth blowing creates well-made glass tubing to this day, it was not a process that could be done continuously or uniformly, and thus the market could not take off. This did not change until the nineteenth century, when companies glass companies began the work to figure out a more efficient and less expensive way to the tubes. At the turn of the twentieth century, in 1912, an American inventor by the name Edward Danner developed a continuous tube drawing method that is conducted in a horizontal direction. In 1918, he received a patent for his tube draw method. Eleven years later, in France, Leopoldo Sanches-Vello developed another tube drawing method; this one working in a vertical direction. Today, create glass tubing, glass manufacturers can use a number of different processes, including glass blowing and glass drawing, to fabricate glass tubing in many different standard and custom lengths and thicknesses. In short, glassblowing involves inflating molten glass into a bubble known as a parison, into either a mold or free form into the air, and using a stream of air to keep the molten glass in this form until it has dried and hardened into the shape of a tube. Drawing is a similar procedure that involves first melting the glass and then drawing a stream of it in its molten form over a mold-like cone or cylinder. There the glass must remain until it hardens. Once it has cooled, it can be removed and treated further. Glass drawing techniques can be divided into a few different categories, which are: drawing direction horizontal, drawing direction downwards (down-draw) and drawing direction vertically upwards (vertical drawing). Note that drawing direction horizontal can be further divided into the subcategories of the Danner process and the Vello process. In addition to these processes, when glass tubing with exceptionally large diameters is required, glass tubing manufacturers may use the process of centrifugation.

Sometimes, manufacturers may choose to curve or bend glass tubing while it is still heated, as it is more malleable when it is heated. However, this action is risky, as it can easily and will likely distort the cross section of the tubing. Nevertheless, manufacturers still pursue this from time to time, as curved glass tubing has many applications. A few of these applications include: material storage and gas transportation. Glass is quite a brittle material when it is left untreated. For this reason, if glass manufacturers want their products to be effective, after they have fabricated them, they must put the products through a process called annealing. Annealing is a process whereby glass is reheated and then rapidly cooled. It serves glass tubing by making it stronger, by making it more resistant to thermal shock and by removing from it any spots of potential weakness or stress.

The uses of glass tubing are countless indeed. In addition to use in gas transportation and material storage, some of the applications for which glass tubing can be used include: laboratory vials, medical vials, sterilized medical and/or lab tubes, fluorescent light bulbs, halogen light bulbs, sight glass, in-flow measuring cylinders, auto chemical and liquid transporters, backlights and photobioreactors. Those in the market for glass tubing should consider a few different things as they relate to their application or applications. First, they must consider the optical properties of a glass tube. In addition, they must take into account a tube’s loss tangent for energy, electrical properties like electrical resistance, thermal capabilities like thermal conductivity and physical characteristics such as wall thickness/density and material strength. To have all their questions answered and/or to receive a quote from a skilled and reputable glass tubing manufacturer, potential customers should reach out to one or more of the excellent suppliers listed on this page.

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