Hi,

I have had a similar, though not toilet related, experience. Pilkington glass were very helpful at providing help.
One avenue worth exploring during the investigation is, whether the handles had been tightened or fiddled with. A loose handle when tightened without the correct washer can damage the glass and cause it to shatter, some time after the person doing the DIY has left the scene.

Be consoled that at least the toughened glass behaved the way it should and limited any injury to temporary shock.
In a similar accident I investgated, the outcome of the toughened glass shattering led to a severe laceration to an arm caused by some decorative manifestation film holding the shattered glass together and producing a jagged guillotine.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards,

Stewart

Thanks for that.

How do I find the expert I need?

Hi,

As Stewart C mentioned, try contacting Pilkingtons, if its not something they can do direct I am sure they can point you to someone who can help.
Hope this helps.

I spoke to a very nice man at Pilkingtons and he was most helpful. Look up Nickel Sulphide / spontaneous glass breakage on a search engine.

The other likely cause could have been a previous impact.

Thank you for all the replies.

I share Dazzling Puddock's view. Why on earth are doors made of glass (no doubt of opaque or translucent rather than transparent glass!) being specified for toilet cubicles? It's foreseeable that such doors will be subject to numerous knocks and also unintentional stresses, so why use glass even if it is of the sort which breaks in a safe manner. Is it cheaper and/or easier to clean for example than non-glass doors or does its use stem mostly or wholly from an increasing fad or trend among architects and designers?

Also, earlier responses have included some very valid points that the adding of safety film or large stickers for decoration or manifestation to safety glass of the toughened variety may render it hazardous as described.

A few quick comments on this subject.
Toughened glass is generally 4 times stronger than annealed glass. This makes it possible to, for example, use much thinner cross sections of glass as well it's use in structural applications. These improved properties are gained as a result of the stress profile that is induced in the glass by the toughening heat treatment process. Simply explained, the way the glass is heated and then cooled leaves the glass surface is in compression, while the centre is in tension. This stress profile in the glass is successful as most failures start at the surface from tensile loads. For toughened glass to fail, the applied tensile load must overcome the compressive stress at the surface before the surface can go into tension and fail.
However, toughened glass will break if a static or impact load bends the glass sufficiently to overcome the compressive stress and put the surface into tension and exceed its breaking stress. It can also break when the severe impact of a sharp object penetrates the compressive stresses in the surface. Deep scratches may have this effect and cause fracture when glass is subsequently loaded.
Toughened glass is ( or was when I was involved) manufactured to comply with BS 6206. The standard included a quality test that required a 45 kg leather bag filled with lead shot swung against a test panel from a height of 4 feet (1.2 metres?). The panel must either not break or break safely. For a test panel to break safely, the granules resulting from breakage must be less than xxx size and have sufficiently dulled edges so as to greatly reduce the risk of serious injury. (Not every panel is tested this way of course!)
Thus, provided that the screens were properly specified during construction and correctly installed, there is no obvious reason why they should not be used in this application. Things fail; in this case, it would appear, as designed to do. We should be careful not to limit design by over cautious thinking. OK, a bit of a shock when it goes ‘pop’ but what is the likelihood of failure and the real risk of any injury and how does the overall risk profile compare to other commonly used materials in this specific application?
Many of us, no doubt, have glass shower screens at home and would thus be exposed to the risk of failure of toughened glass every day. It has never worried me and I guess never even entered the mind of most that it could go “pop”.

p48

I have worked in the glass industry and when toughened glass spontaneously explodes or goes "pop" unexpectedly it comes as quite a shock. Best place to be in this instance is near a WC!!

Float glass is made by floating the molten glass contents on melted tin - maybe that is what you remembered?

Thank you all for your responses.

Decimo.