Surface reliability of annealed and tempered solar protective glasses: Indentation and scratch behavior

摘要

Solar glass is exposed to mechanical contact cleaning and sand particle impact during operation in outdoor environments resulting in optical efficiency loss as well as decrease in mechanical integrity, durability and reliability. The current study investigates the mechanical behavior of two different solar surface glasses through a series of low and high load indentation and scratch experiments. Nanoindentation experiments are performed on the glass substrate in order to measure the hardness and elasticity moduli at different depths below the surface. Scratch experiments are also preformed to find the critical load for the extent of plastic zone or the onset of micro-cracking. The influence of heat treatment for photovoltaic glasses on mechanical properties such as elastic modulus and hardness, and surface properties such as friction coefficient and elastic recovery is examined in this study in which heat treatment is found to affect both mechanical and surface properties. Also, different resistance behavior is observed in low and high load experiments as well as in indentation vs. scratch experiments. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.