Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Light transmissive sheets – with gas space therebetween and...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-03
2002-05-14
Copenheaver, Blaine (Department: 1773)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Light transmissive sheets, with gas space therebetween and...
C052S783100, C052S786100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06387460
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a glass panel for improving heat insulating performance. The invention relates, more particularly, to a glass panel formed by assembling together a plurality of glass sheets with a plurality of spacers being interposed therebetween for forming a space and with outer peripheral edges of the plurality of glass sheets being sealed, and a method of manufacturing such glass panel, and relates further to the spacer for use in such glass panel.
BACKGROUND ART
Conventionally, such glass panel, as shown in
FIGS. 48 and 49
for instance, is manufactured by disposing a plurality of spacers
5
made of cylindrical glass prepared in the form of spacers at predetermined positions on a spacer-disposing face
2
A of a first glass sheet
1
A, superposing a second glass sheet
1
B thereon, and sealing outer peripheral edges
3
of the two glass sheets with a sealing material S made of low-melting glass.
Also, with the above-described glass panel, the inside of the space
4
is maintained under a pressure-reduced condition, in order to enhance the heat insulating performance and sound insulating performance. For this reason, the great number of spacers
5
are interposed between the first glass sheet
1
A and the second glass sheet
1
B so as to allow the atmospheric pressure acting on the outer surface of the first glass sheet
1
A or second glass sheet
1
B to be substantially uniformly born by the entire glass sheets, whereby breakage or cracking of the first glass sheet
1
A and second glass sheet
1
B may be avoided.
For manufacturing a glass panel, generally, after the spacers
5
are disposed on the surface of the first glass sheet
1
A, the second glass sheet
1
B is superposed thereon. With the conventional glass panel, the disposing operation of the spacers
5
at predetermined positions on the first glass sheet
1
A is done by a worker's manual operation of disposing the spacers
5
one by one on the first glass sheet
1
A or by using a suction-conveying device operable to suck the plurality of spacers (
5
) to be disposed within a predetermined area at one time and then to place them on the first glass sheet
1
A.
Further, with the above-described conventional art, a great number of spacers
5
need to be manufactured in advance and these spacers
5
need to be placed with a predetermined distance therebetween on the sheet face of the first glass sheet
1
A. Moreover, a separate operation is needed for bonding these spacers
5
on the first glass sheet so as to prevent movement of the spacers. Hence, the handling of the spacers
5
would be troublesome and the manufacturing process of the glass panel would be complicated.
For example, with the conventional glass panel manufacturing method described above, the mere disposing operation of the spacers
5
on the first glass sheet
1
A cannot prevent inadvertent displacement or tumbling of the spacers
5
in the course of the superposing operation of the second glass sheet
1
B unless the spacers
5
are fixed in advance. Therefore, the superposing operation of the two glass sheets
1
A,
1
B is troublesome, hence, the productivity is poor. Then, it is conceivable to bond the spacers
5
on the first glass sheet
1
A However, it is not easy to bond such great number of small objects.
In view of the above, as shown in
FIGS. 42 through 44
for example, the convention has proposed an alternative method (e.g. the European patent Serial No. 0047725), in which case spacer-forming paste
11
which is prepared by mixing together low-melting glass frit and caking additive is caused to adhere, in the form of paste-formed members
10
having predetermined dimensions, to the respective predetermined positions on the two glass sheets
1
A,
1
B (see FIG.
42
), then after placing the leading ends of these paste-formed members
10
into abutment with each other, the members are baked (see FIG.
43
), so as to be combined together into the spacers
5
, and also these spacers
5
are bonded to the respective glass sheets
1
A,
1
B (see FIG.
44
).
However, in order to realize this proposal, it is necessary to arrange the small paste-formed members
10
with high precision on the faces
2
of the opposed glass sheets
1
A,
1
B on the side of the space
4
. That is, as shown in
FIG. 45
for instance, if there occurs error in the relative positioning between the two glass sheets
1
A,
1
B, this will result in misalignment as shown in
FIG. 46
between the opposed paste-formed members
10
. As a result, there will be formed some misaligned spacers
5
at mid-positions as shown in FIG.
47
. With such misalignment, there is the risk of the spacers
5
, when used, being broken at such misaligned positions. Moreover, if there is extreme misalignment between the opposed paste-formed members
10
, the spacers
5
bonded to the opposed glass sheets
1
will not be bonded with each other, so that they will fail to function properly as spacers
5
. Therefore, very careful positioning operation is needed. Hence, when the two glass sheets
1
A,
1
B are assembled together, a precise positioning operation is needed and the operation is not easy.
Also, the two glass sheets
1
A,
1
B after being assembled together are completely restricted in position relative to each other by means of the spacers
5
. Then, if there occurs deformation of the glass panel, such as warping thereof, due to an external force, e.g. wind pressure, acting on the glass panel, this will cause mutual displacement between the two glass sheets
1
A,
1
B, so that the spacers
5
may be broken or the glass sheets
1
may be damaged.
Moreover, of the conventional methods described above, in the case of the worker's manual operation of disposing all of the spacers
5
on the first glass sheet
1
A, this operation is very troublesome and the production efficiency of the glass panel is low.
On the other hand, in the case of disposing the spacers
5
by using the suction-conveying apparatus or the like, such suction-conveying apparatus needs to be prepared separately. Moreover, a plurality of such suction-conveying apparatuses need to be prepared in order to cope with all possible sizes of glass sheets. Hence, there occur such inconveniences as disadvantageous diversification of the required manufacturing system, necessity of maintenance of the system, which all lead to increase in the required costs. Further, in this case, some of the spacers
5
disposed on the first glass sheet
1
A may not be disposed properly, with improper inclined or lateral orientation. Thus, there was a limit in possible improvement of the efficiency of disposing operation of the spacers
5
.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-described state of the art and its object is to provide a glass panel which is easy to manufacture and has superior productivity and which can prevent damage of the glass sheets and a method of manufacturing such glass panel and also to provide spacers for use in such glass panel.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
The characterizing features of the glass panel according to the present invention are as follows.
A glass panel relating to claim
1
, as shown mainly in
FIG. 9
, comprises a pair of first and second glass sheets disposed with sheet faces thereof opposed to each other, a plurality of spacers interposed between the pair of glass sheets for forming a space therebetween, and a sealing glass for bonding peripheral edges of the glass sheets together for sealing the space, the sealing glass having a fusing temperature lower than a softening point of the glass sheets, wherein each spacer is formed by disposing spacer-forming paste in a predetermined shape on the sheet face of the glass sheet and then baking the paste, said spacer-forming paste containing glass component which has a fusing temperature lower than the softening point of the glass sheets and a softening point higher than a fusing temperature of the sealing glass.
That is to say, the spacer fused to glass sheets may be formed by disposing the spacer-forming p
Asano Osamu
Honjo Seiichiro
Horiguchi Naoto
Misonou Masao
Miura Tomonori
Copenheaver Blaine
Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
Nippon Sheet Glass Co. Ltd.
Paulraj Christopher
LandOfFree
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