Tempered vs Laminated Glass: Which One Should You Specify?

When comparing tempered vs laminated glass, it helps to know that both are among the most widely used types of safety glazing. While both provide important safety benefits, they are manufactured differently and behave very differently when broken.

Choosing between them is therefore not simply a question of which glass is stronger. The key consideration is what the glass is expected to do during use — and particularly what should happen if it breaks.

Tempered Glass

Tempered glass starts as ordinary annealed glass. After cutting and edge processing, it is heated to a high temperature and rapidly cooled with controlled air jets.

This process creates a permanent internal stress pattern, significantly increasing the glass’s bending strength compared with annealed glass of the same thickness.

When tempered glass fails, these internal stresses are released and the pane typically fragments into many small, relatively blunt pieces.

For this reason, tempered glass is commonly used in applications such as shower enclosures, partitions, furniture, and certain automotive and architectural glazing applications.

Laminated Glass

Laminated glass consists of two or more glass plies bonded together with an interlayer, commonly PVB.

Its key characteristic is its post-breakage behaviour. When laminated glass breaks, the glass may crack extensively, but the fragments generally remain bonded to the interlayer. This allows the glazing to remain largely together after breakage.

Typical applications include automotive windshields, balustrades, overhead glazing, security glazing, and other applications where glass retention is important.

Importantly, laminated glass can itself be produced using annealed, heat-strengthened, or tempered glass plies, depending on the required performance.