Influence of water vapor and annealing on strength of soda lime glass rods

This investigation was undertaken to study corrosion of soda-lime glass rods by water vapor and the resulting effect on the strength of the rods. Due to the thinness of corrosion layer, it was not practical to measure the variation of its thickness with the time of corrosion. Consequently, as a measure of corrosion, the breaking strength of the rods, after being exposed to saturated steam for various lengths of time, was determined. The result of the short time steam treatment was to increase the breaking strength of the rods. However, the strength of the rods decreased considerably upon further treatment. The explanation given for this behavior is based upon the flaw theory. In order to separate the effect of temperature from corrosion on the rods, two groups of specimens were annealed in air at the same temperature as the saturated steam. The results obtained was compared with the corroded and untreated control group.U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Contract No. Nonr 2947(02)(x), NRL Project 62 R05 19