Determination of the Optical Characteristics of Glazing: Measurements and Calculations

Robert Davies, Pilkington Research

The author discusses the approach taken by the Pilkington European Technical Centre, with regard to the accurate measurement and assessment of glass optical properties within the Spectroscopy laboratory at the Centre. Particular emphasis is placed on optimising the accuracy of these measurements as well as explaining the methodology behind the in-house written software that is used to perform calculations, control the flow of data and produce reports. This has been necessary in order to satisfy the requirements of the recently (February 2004) acquired UKAS (1) accreditation status by the laboratory.

Once the accurate measurement has been made on the relevant instrument, the Spectrum software is used to save the raw data, write a report either in Microsoft® Word or Excel or to produce a formal UKAS report. Additionally, predictions can be made for products of differing thickness or with different combinations of substrate/coating, in compliance with ISO9050 and EN410 calculation standards for buildings, without the necessity of performing the actual measurements.

As the above software is necessarily reasonably complex due to the many different options available within it, a simpler version, with limited capability, has been produced. This is now in the public domain and can be downloaded from the Internet, free of charge.

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The Authors

Mr. Robert Davies Pilkington Technical Centre Robert Davies is the Laboratory Manager in Spectroscopy Laboratory, Pilkington Technology Centre, UK. In this position he has been for eight years. He has 35 years of experience working for the compan... Read more