It’s my understanding that adhering steel to glass has not been an issue for some time. The issue is that they expand differently with heat. Which is why you have a rubber/flexible seal.
“We tested the welds at -50C to 90C and the welds remained intact, so we know they are robust enough to cope with extreme conditions.”
Well car surfaces (or even interior) can get hotter than that for example. Also, 1 test doesn't cover a use case of 5-10 years of daily heating and cooling down ie on a car parked outside, or darker window frame on a sunny side of building.
Plenty of glass to metal sealing is done for hermetic purposes. One use is glass sealed connectors for aerospace use. Also components for ultra high vacuum systems which use metal to glass (or ceramic) joints to transition between materials or electrical isolation.
Generally these metal-glass joints use a sealant that also acts as an expansion joint. The California Academy of Sciences (that building with the grass on the roof with the circular windows) has a rainforest sphere made out of 8x8 foot panels, if you inspect the joints they are sealed with 1" of silicone caulking to account for different rates of expansion of the glass in four directions. This silicone caulking is al…
No, there are special alloys and techniques for directly bonding metal to glass. In a lot of cases the approach is to keep the bonded area close together to minimize the distortion of the metal from the different expansion rates.
Materials like Kovar are designed such that it very closely matches the expansion curve of glass so that it forms a hermetic seal without any kind of sealant between the glass and the metal.
Eyeglasses with frames welded to the lenses would be kinda cool, and may even justify current commercial price points (not that they would be sold for them).
Wouldn't it be impossible, then, to replace the lenses with new ones (in case of scratches, or with eyesight changes over time)?
My old frames need replacement at about the same rate as the lens, so I don't really care.
Eyeglasses with frames welded to the lenses would be kinda cool, and may even justify current commercial price points (not that they would be sold for them).
It sounds like a problem that doesn't need solving. I'm happy with keeping my frames and changing lenses once a year.
I suppose but personally I have only ever heard of people changing the entire frames with the glass. What a wasteful time we live in.
If it saves human time, it’s not wasteful. Time is the ultimate nonrenewable resource, while we are awash in materials.
Yes I believe in the mantra as well however you will hardly convince me this applies to a frame and lens. Yes it may be less time consuming for the purchaser to just grab a entire new pair off the shelf but someone had to dig out the ore to get to the metal to and someone drill out gas to move the ore around and so forth you get the point. As we know global climate change is real, and I have children who I leave this earth, surely on a global scale, me replacing the glass in a frame is less wasteful for everyone's time. But I only reply because you said 'human time' vs something like 'if it saves my time'. Most of what we consider to saves our personal time is at a considerable cost to the environment, and other peoples time. We destroy the environment so my kids can spend their time cleaning it up in the future. What a screwy way to live.
If it saves human time, it’s not wasteful. Time is the ultimate nonrenewable resource, while we are awash in materials.
Yes I believe in the mantra as well however you will hardly convince me this applies to a frame and lens. Yes it may be less time consuming for the purchaser to just grab a entire new pair off the shelf but someone had to dig out the ore to get to the metal to and someone drill out gas to move the ore around and so forth you get the point. As we know global climate change is real, and I have children who I leave this…