Why did my glass explode?

Question

I washed-up a glass tumbler in warm water and put it on the draining board. About 30 seconds later, it exploded into fragments with a bang. My TV was on, but the volume was quiet and I don't recall any music playing.

Answer 1

It could be from thermal stresses resulting from a temperature differential or it could of just slid off the counter.

Answer 2

1) Assuming that your glass tumbler had a cool drink in it before you drank it and then washed the glass in warm water, the cool drink has caused the insides of the tumbler to contract while the warm water has caused the outside of the tumbler to expand. This expansion-contraction can caused the tumbler to "explode".

2) Or vice versa. You had a rather hot drink in the tumbler before washing it in the warm water (which is still cooler than before), and the same occurs.

3) It slid off the draining board.

4) There are minor tremors that you did not feel. (Are you in an earthquake zone?)

5) It CANNOT be due to the frequency of the sounds around you as this frequency must be very high in order to result in the resonance of the glass and hence its breakage.

Answer 3

If it shattered into small pieces it is almost certainly because it was made of toughened glass. This is a well known phenomenon when toughened glass fails.

Glass is a special phase of matter, and is technically rather like a supercooled fluid. It goes through a transition at a specific temperature (called the glass transition) at which it becomes solid like.

To make toughened glass, the liquid glass is cooled very rapidly. The surface goes through the glass transition and stops flowing. Meanwhile the centre of the glass continues to contract and flow as it cools. This pulls against the now solid surface of the glass.

As a result the surface of the glass in a toughened glass is being pulled hard by internal forces inwards. If you hit the glass you have to overcome these forces before you can put the glass under stress. And you have to put the glass under stress before it will break, so it is very, very strong.

But these same forces can work against you. If the surface becomes damaged (a deep enough scratch) then these forces pull the damaged region apart. The result is catastrophic failure of the glass. The shock wave in the glass happens so quickly that it shatters into very tiny pieces - much smaller than a normal breaking glass - usually with a pop.

Answer 4

Without knowing the details, this is just a guess. If the draining board was smooth like Formica or glass, the wet glass would slide easily. Add to that the disturbance of the air bubbles as the glass heated the air trapped inside (assuming the glass was mouth-down), and you have a scenario for the glass sliding off the board and crashing.

Answer 5

It is likely that the glass was damaged and therefore weakened, the thermal expansion/contraction differential, possibly due to the temperature of the glass vs the temperature of the drainer, and the points at which the temp differential was greatest, stressed the damaged point of the glass, and it fractured.

This is a fairly common issue in cars with hinged glass, if the hinge points are damaged in any way, hot days can cause the glass to shatter spontaneously.

Answer 6

If the Glass was very cold, the sudden introduction of heat from the warm water would have caused the glass to rapidly expand at such a rate it would cause the glass to shatter.

Answer 7

Its because it has gone from being too hot to too cold in too short space of time good fun to watch but not if its your favourite glass

Answer 8

If you said extremely hot water I would say that it cooled off too quickly, which will cause glass to bust.

Answer 9

Gremlins

Answer 10

personally I think you have sniper that picked off the glass making it explode