Study on bending deformation of ultra-thin floating glass plate

•Key factors to cause a bending deformation of the ultra-thin floating glass plate were exposed.•A numerical model based on FEM was proposed to estimate the bending deformation of the floating glass plate.•The tin penetration in the tin bath is an important factor to cause the bending deformation after chemical strengthening.•The bending deformation of the floating glass plates was measured to validate the proposed model. The bending deformation caused by chemical strengthening is often thought as a negative factor on the performance of the ultra-thin glass plate. It becomes serious with the thickness of the ultra-thin glass plate getting smaller. The mechanism of the bending deformation was analyzed in this paper. The key factors including thermal history and micro structure variation caused by tin penetration were discussed accordingly. A numerical model was proposed to predict the bending deformation during manufacturing and chemical strengthening procedures. It was validated by bending deformation measurement. It is shown that after chemical strengthening the glass plate bends toward the upper (atmosphere) surface. The tin ion penetration during floating is an important factor to cause bending deformation in chemical strengthening stage.