Determination of Stiffness and Hardness of Glasses by using Acoustic Waves Testing

In this study we sought to develop a non-destructive test that uses the propagation of acoustic waves to characterize the stiffness and hardness of flat glasses. For this purpose, three different glass samples were investigated by using acoustic waves resulting from the impact caused by a steel sphere in free fall on the samples surface. As a result, it was found that the glass samples have different vibration frequency and this behavior is associated to the Young's modulus and microhardness, values. The values calculated by the ultrasonic transmission method indicated that the increase in stiffness is related to the appearance ofamplitude peaks in the acoustic signal of the samples, attesting to the possibility of the method for characterizing the mechanical properties of glasses used in civil building.