A glass bottle is a bottle created from glass. Glass bottles can vary in size considerably, but are most commonly found in sizes ranging between about 10ml and 5 litres.
The history of glass can be traced back to at least 12,000 BC where glass coated objects have been found.
Millions of glass bottles are created worldwide every day. In the US, there is an average of at least two bottle-making factories in each county. It is a highly mechanized process, and the bottles in use now are no longer hand blown as they were in the past.
A glass bottle is 100% recyclable with many new bottles containing glass which was created over 20 years ago. Less energy is used in recycling a glass bottle than creating the glass from raw materials, helping the environment.
When glass bottles of liquid are dropped or subjected to shock, the water hammer effect may cause hydrodynamic glass breakage.
Glass bottles manufacturing takes place over several stages. To briefly outline the processes from beginning to end: raw material, melting, forming, annealing, physical inspection, machine & laser inspection, physical inspection (second time), quality control, and finally packing.
To strengthen glass bottles, the process of lamination is sometimes done. Laminated safety glass is made by combining a layer of plastic over glass. When a non-laminated bottle is dropped, the glass breaks sending pieces of glass everywhere. When a laminated bottle is dropped, the glass still breaks, though the outer layer of plastic contains the broken pieces of glass.
Once formation is complete, some bottles may suffer from stress as a result of unequal cooling rates. An annealing oven can be used to reheat and cool glass containers to rectify stress and make the bottle stronger.
