GLARE

Hello People, discussing about the largest things in the world one might eventually end up at talking about the largest commercial jet, Airbus A380.

But thinking about this man made bird, we must keep in mind the material that supposedly used to build its cockpit glass, and wings. Although all the models of Airbus use the aviation glass, but A380 uses a glass known as GLARE ("Glass Laminate Aluminium Reinforced Epoxy") . 

The Emirates A380

So What is GLARE?

GLARE is a "Glass Laminate Aluminium Reinforced Epoxy", composed of several very thin layers of metal (usually aluminium) interspersed with layers of glass-fibre known as "pre-preg", bonded together with a matrix such as epoxy. The uni-directional pre-preg layers may be aligned in different directions to suit the predicted stress conditions.

Although GLARE is a composite material, its material properties and fabrication are very similar to bulk aluminum metal sheets. It has far less in common with composite structures when it comes to design, manufacture, inspection or maintenance. GLARE parts are constructed and repaired using mostly conventional metal material techniques.

What is Special about this Glass?

Its major advantages over conventional aluminium are:

·         Better "damage tolerance" behaviour (especially impact and metal fatigue, as the elastic strain is larger than other metal material it can consume more impact energy. It is dented easier but has a higher penetration resistance )

·         Better corrosion resistance

·         Better fire resistance

Its a FML (Fibre Metal Laminate)

 Fibre Metal Laminate (or FML) is one of a class of metallic materials consisting of a laminate of several thin metal layers bonded with layers of composite material. This allows the material to behave much as a simple metal structure, but with considerable specific advantages regarding properties such as metal fatigue, impact, corrosion resistance, fire resistance, weight-savings and specialised strength properties.

Being a mixture of monolithic metals and composite materials, FMLs belong to the class of heterogeneous mixtures (see below).

Examples of FMLs are ARALL (Aramid fibres) and GLARE.

 For Further Information

A video by National Geographic,

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