Glass Supply: Era (Pacific Place Precinct)

EraThe Era project is a $310 million dollar, 42 storey development in Chatswood, Sydney being developed by Mirvac. Era is the fifth and final residential building in Mirvac’s Pacific Place precinct. Era features 295 luxury apartments – most of which sold off the plan within a day of release.

G.James’ Role

G.James has been engaged by 3 separate customers to supply a total of 11,150m² of glass for the project.

G.James is supplying clear laminated and toughened safety glass to be used for windows and doors in the project, as well as Colourlite printed glass for some applications. G.James is also supplying heat strengthened laminated glass and heat soaked toughened glass, which will be used in balustrade for the project. Additionally, some heat strengthened glass is being supplied for use in louvres.

Why use Heat Strengthened glass?

Heat strengthened glass is about twice as strong as ordinary float glass and is used generally as a protection against thermal breakage –  it has higher compressive stresses which resist thermal breakage. Heat strengthened has a surface compression induced by a temperature increase and sudden quenching. The existence of the surface compression means that it must be overcome by load before any surface tensile stress is achieved. Heat strengthened glass breaks into large, safer particles. In laminated glass the inter-layer holds these pieces safely in place in the event of breakage.

Point of failure in a sheet of toughened glass due to NiS inclusion.

Point of failure in toughened glass caused by NiS inclusion.

Why use heat soaked glass?

Although rare, nickel sulphide (NiS) inclusions in toughened glass can lead to “spontaneous” breakage. These inclusions are tiny contaminant particles in the raw materials of glass. During the toughening process these particles are altered to an unstable chemical state. If they revert back to the stable chemical state, the particles increase in volume, which can sometimes lead to breakage in toughened glass. This conversion may take years to occur, if happens at all. Heat soaking is a destructive test which heats the glass to 280˚C for several hours to speed up the transformation of any NiS should it be present. This accelerated testing process reduces the likelihood of breakage of installed glass by a factor of 20. Identifying NiS inclusion prior to on-site installation has distinctive cost, safety and security benefits, and is especially important where the consequence of breakage could result in injury – such as when the glass is to be used in exposed elevated positions.

Nickel sulphide inclusions in heat strengthened glass are much more unlikely to cause breakages due to the lower levels of compressive stress.

Looking Ahead

With the continued support from our laminating facility in Brisbane, this project is running on or ahead of schedule and is approximately 50% complete. Era is set to be completed late this year. For more information, please contact G.James glass sales.