
Welding breakthrough could transform manufacturing - lelf
https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/news/2019/welding-breakthrough-could-transform.htm
======
yetihehe
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309121)

------
excalibur
Eyeglasses with frames welded to the lenses would be kinda cool, and may even
justify current commercial price points (not that they would be sold for
them).

~~~
gattilorenz
Wouldn't it be impossible, then, to replace the lenses with new ones (in case
of scratches, or with eyesight changes over time)?

~~~
14
I suppose but personally I have only ever heard of people changing the entire
frames with the glass. What a wasteful time we live in.

~~~
patentatt
I’ve tried to change lenses while keeping frames, most manufacturers make it
pretty hard to do so. Some don’t sell blank lenses without frames, and others
have such fragmented and changing product lines that lenses aren’t available
1-2 years after original purchase. And to be fair, frames aren’t really all
that durable anyways, and for something used daily it’s not all that wasteful
to replace them every once in a while

~~~
jdietrich
That's not how eyeglasses work. Lenses are supplied to opticians as a round
blank, which are then cut to fit the frame. Any optician should be able to re-
glaze any frame, regardless of age or manufacturer; their equipment measures
the frame, then cuts the lens to fit. It's really quite impressive to watch:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCjGNUPO0WU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCjGNUPO0WU)

~~~
_ph_
Things are changing again. My optician used to work as you described, but for
my last set of glasses I would choose the frame and he would enter my lens
specification into the manufacturers webpage. The manufacturer (a German
brand) with a Singapore factory would produce then the desired frame and equip
it with the fitting lenses and send off the bundle to my optician here in
Germany. As I had the same lens specs as my previous glasses, I can say that
the new glasses are optically superior and the whole package was even
distinctively cheaper than the previous one.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Still the same concept though, just moved: the Signapore facility still starts
with a round blank and grinds it to "whatever is required", so you can fit any
lens to any frame still.

------
TheRealPomax
If ever an article needed a video, this is it. There's maybe a paragraph's
worth of actual information in the article.

------
benmcnelly
I would love to see some pictures.

~~~
the8472
[https://www.lasersystemseurope.com/news/ultrafast-laser-
used...](https://www.lasersystemseurope.com/news/ultrafast-laser-used-
successfully-weld-glass-metal)

[https://sci-hub.tw/10.1364/AO.56.004873](https://sci-
hub.tw/10.1364/AO.56.004873)

~~~
gibolt
Seems like they are working with pretty large scale objects

------
AllegedAlec
Sounds really interesting. The only potential downside I see is that metal and
glass generally expand differently under heat and have different tensile
strengths etc. I wonder how they plan to deal with that.

~~~
abduhl
Isn’t that the whole reason this is a breakthrough? It’s even discussed in the
article...

Professor Duncan Hand, director of the five-university EPSRC Centre for
Innovative Manufacturing in Laser-based Production Processes based at Heriot-
Watt, said: “Traditionally it has been very difficult to weld together
dissimilar materials like glass and metal due to their different thermal
properties - the high temperatures and highly different thermal expansions
involved cause the glass to shatter.

~~~
AllegedAlec
I read that more as being about the welding process, while I'm more thinking
about how it would function during its use.

------
boshomi
Link to archive while site is down:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20190410160012/https://www.hw.ac....](http://web.archive.org/web/20190410160012/https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/news/2019/welding-
breakthrough-could-transform.htm)

------
taivare
glass welded to Titanium ,Stainless steel ,Aluminum and other metals could
lead to high performance enamels for all types of industrial uses.

------
katakuchi
Interesting. I wonder if an architect/civil engineer could explain what the
implications would be of the application of this technology in the field of
construction?

~~~
willyt
Steel structures deflect a lot more than glass and buildings are built to
relatively loose tolerances. E.g. skyscrapers have flexible neoprene gaskets
between glass cladding panels to allow for a few mm of structural deflection
due loads caused by wind, thermal, floor loadings and construction settlement.
To give a rough idea, if you take a point on the top of a 250m skyscraper it
could be anywhere within a ~300mm diameter circle due to these loads.

So while I'm not 100% sure, it sounds like this technique would be more useful
for product design scale stuff like phones, nano machines, miniaturised
optical systems.

------
gnode
In what use cases is this superior to traditional metal-glass seals (e.g.
vacuum tubes), or metal-on-glass deposition (e.g. mirrors)?

~~~
floatingatoll
This permits bonding a metal handle to a pyrex measuring cup. (It would only
be safe up to boiling temperatures under the restrictions of the current
process, assuming that the process described scales up to a measuring cup.)

This is a constructed example to demonstrate the type of thing that _could_ be
done now that we've figured out a possible way to _do_ it. It's probably not a
good example, but it is clearly distinct from the thin-film processes we
consider common today.

EDIT: See below’s multi-paragraph writeup of why my “now you can do this”
example is not a good example in practice.

~~~
logfromblammo
One of the advantages of borosilicate glass kitchenware is that you can put it
in the oven, fridge, and microwave. Bonding metal to it with a joint that only
works up to 90C obviates most of that utility. The only problem with
borosilicate glass vessels as they are is that they don't work on inductive
cooktops.

That joint is going to have to handle 300C in order to make it into my
kitchen. I might go for a glass/ceramic liner in an aluminum pan, particularly
if the ceramic is BAM, but that's going to get hot.

I'd actually look for this first in LED lenses bonded to aluminum heat sinks.
A good bond there might allow for higher wattage through the electronic parts.
An operating range between -50C and 90C encompasses the operating range of
most consumer electronics, plus some margin.

------
Gravityloss
If materials become composites, they can become hard to recycle.

Pure aluminum or pure steel is easier.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Based on their mechanical properties I don't see why the current recycling
process wouldn't work.

It's not like the metal recycling industry doesn't already deal with huge
amounts impurities and other material entering the process. If you happen to
have tons of metal welded glass to scrap you're not going to get as much money
for it because it needs more processing so it will enter the supply chain at a
lower price point. It's like the difference between scrapping a car and
scrapping machine shop chips.

------
0xDEFC0DE
Could this be used to make interesting optical sensors?

~~~
starky
I could definitely see the applications when it comes to optics, even just
considering the assembly of camera lenses could be improved or automated more
with a process like this. Maybe it could be used for automated optical
alignment to improve optical quality and consistency. Current methods for
doing this are very manual.

------
ryanmarsh
It’s my understanding that adhering steel to glass has not been an issue for
some time. The issue is that they expand differently with heat. Which is why
you have a rubber/flexible seal.

~~~
tk75x
“We tested the welds at -50C to 90C and the welds remained intact, so we know
they are robust enough to cope with extreme conditions.”

~~~
dsfyu404ed
That's a meaningless statement without knowing what kind of assembly they
built, the shape of the joint between the materials was and if the test sample
was heated evenly or unevenly.

------
_bxg1
Jony Ive is foaming at the mouth

~~~
pixelbreaker
And that was before he read this.

------
platzer
How is this advantageous over gluing?

~~~
deweller
From the article:

> At the moment, equipment and products that involve glass and metal are often
> held together by adhesives, which are messy to apply and parts can gradually
> creep, or move. Outgassing is also an issue - organic chemicals from the
> adhesive can be gradually released and can lead to reduced product lifetime.

~~~
blattimwind
On the other hand glass has been glued to metal in e.g. optical assemblies for
a long, long time and those joints rarely if ever fail.

------
hackerbabz
Excited for Apple to finally weld the screen to the chassis and produce a
Macbook that you just throw in the trash when the keyboard breaks.

~~~
_underfl0w_
Another commenter pointed to the similar implications for new iPhone models.

Unless iFixit et al releases an affordable home glass-to-aluminum welding
solution, I think Apple may win the cat-and-mouse 3rd party repair game for
now.

Sad, really.

------
bebna
So how long till transparent aluminium?

~~~
noir_lord
Already exists under the brand name ALON (Aluminium Oxynitride).

It's hard as hell for a transparent ceramic, obvious military applications but
useful in other places as well.

~~~
mxuribe
Transparent aluminum exists? Wow, that's cool!

