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FrozenGate by Avery

Photoreactive fluids

There is a huge variety of optical windows available. They can be expensive depending on which type you choose. Microscope slides are a dirt cheap alternative for situations where nit picky optics are not necessary.
 





Trying to incorporate an optical window in a piece of blown glass with no leaks and without having the whole thing just crack on you when you fill it with liquid is going to be a very tall order. I think the idea of polishing/grinding the glass to the necessary quality in a particular location makes more sense to me. If the hole is larger than a certain critical radius, which depends on both the pressure, thickness, and the material properties, it will ALWAYS crack, in fact.
 
shrinking_ultraviolet said:
Trying to incorporate an optical window in a piece of blown glass with no leaks and without having the whole thing just crack on you when you fill it with liquid is going to be a very tall order. I think the idea of polishing/grinding the glass to the necessary quality in a particular location makes more sense to me. If the hole is larger than a certain critical radius, which depends on both the pressure, thickness, and the material properties, it will ALWAYS crack, in fact.
Click to expand...
I guess I should have clarified that I would be be blowing the glass and making these holes while they are hot so cracks wouldn't really be that big of a concern! But you are all right, the grinding and polishing a flat window is 100% the way to go.
 
Even if you had made the hole while it is hot, it actually wouldn't matter -- if the hole is too big for a certain pressure and thickness, it WILL crack. You can actually calculate the radius where it will happen. It's not really a matter of how you make the hole, it's just that when a hole is above a certain radius it becomes unstable because a net amount of energy is released by making the hole bigger (with a crack) which then goes into making the hole even bigger still, and that feedback results in a broken vessel. Rest In Pieces.

Anyway, that's the physics of it (and I rather enjoy teaching undergrads about fracture mechanics, so scuse my enthusiasm).
 
These are the physics knowledge bombs I was looking for 💣

Now that I think of it any hole I've seen blown in soft glass has been heavily reinforced around the hole with extra glass.
 
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