VACUUM GLAZING - A NEW COMPONENT FOR INSULATING WINDOWS

The substantial progress in teh science and technology of vacuum glazi ng that has occurred over the past few years is reviewed. Vacuum glazi ng up to 1 m x 1 m in size has been produced with an air-to-air, mid-d evice thermal conductance as low as 0.90 W-2 K-1, compared with 1.3 W m(-2) K-1 for high performance double glazing. the mechanical tensile stresses in vacuum glazing due to pressure and temperature differentia ls are well understood, and appear to be tolerably small. The internal vacuum is high, and extremely stable over long times at moderate temp eratures. The likely cost of volume productions of vacuum glasing shou ld be only slightly greater than for high performance double glazing.