The Ultimate Quality Assurance

Distortion Measurement

Cardinal ST’s state-of-the art distortion measurement system is installed on each of its high-volume tempering furnaces. This gives real time measurements on 100% of the glass being produced for roll ripple distortion and edge kink.

Dimensional Measurement

A high-resolution camera system inspects 100% of the glass production for size (length and width), hole diameter, hole location, squareness, and other critical geometries It also uses infrared temperature measurements to automatically correct the glass dimensional measurements for thermal contraction, as glass cools after tempering.

Defect Detection

A high-resolution, high-speed camera is used to detect scratches, sub-surface defects and debris on the glass surface. The system accurately characterizes defects by size and sorts them according to your specifications, preventing defective glass from proceeding to high value operations.

Tempered Conformance

In all Cardinal ST tempering facilities, we utilize surface stress polarimeters to measure the post-tempering residual stress in the glass that gives the glass its high strength. This stress measurement tool, along with state-of-the-art in-line thermal imaging cameras, allows us to tightly control our tempering process, assuring you of high quality tempered glass every time.

The Flattest Glass Surfaces in the Solar Industry

Our I.Q. systems help Cardinal ST produce what we consider to be the flattest, highest quality, heat-treated glass in the industry. Real time feedback on each glass panel produced allows manufacturing personnel to rapidly adjust the process to improve quality and enable continuous product improvement.

Conventional surface

SolarTemp’s surface

The above images are graphic distortion representations (3-D) of tempered glass from a conventional tempering furnace as compared to Cardinal’s SolarTemp products. With a point-and-click, we can look at both 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional rotatable views of our SolarTemp production.

See Also: I.Q. Home | SolarFloat I.Q. | SolarFilm I.Q.