Motorized vehicles have become an integral part of our every day lives. From business to personal use, there’s no denying the convenience of owning or using a car or truck to accomplish whatever task or errand. With this in mind, the windshield is an integral part of the vehicle because with any significant damage to it, you couldn’t operate it. There is always going to be a certain amount of debris on whatever road you use, which can lead to nicks and dents in the windshield — face it, chip happens!
Now most vehicle owners do routine maintenance by checking oil, tire pressure and when there’s any type of problems, a driver get the vehicle looked at and then repaired to prevent more costly repairs later. One important thing that get neglected, but shouldn’t, is the vehicle’s windshield — it’s importance cannot be underestimated. Many people don’t take windshield chip repair very seriously and many don’t realize that windshields are always fragile to stresses that happen from inside the vehicle.
Windshields endure a lot of stress — this includes road vibrations, changes in temperature (due to the day’s heat and night cooling), road debris and shears in car’s body frame. Glass expands and contracts at a rate slower than the frame of the metal body that covers the screen. Temperature increase causes the metal to expand, pushing in the glass and a decrease in temperature pulls the windscreen edges. In addition to the stress with temperature, there’s constant pushing and pulling of the windshield from the metal frame caused by road vibrations — stress occurs highest around the edges of the glass.
If a rock hits the windshield, it creates an opening instantly and often, the windshield will distribute vibration and temperature stress across the neighbouring glass molecule. But this tension can accumulate at the edges of the crack until it reaches down the border of the glass that’s intact. This extra tension makes the borderline of the intact glass to separate, as it is its next weakest point and continues until something is done about it.
The stresses caused to the windshield directly correlates to the likelihood of a crack to develop further. If a stone hits at a highly stressed area, which is the windshield’s sides, it can evolve quickly into a crack. Cracks that originate from highly stressed areas quickly spread to low stressed areas, like the centre — this is just like water flowing from high pressure to low pressure regions.
After understanding the amount of stress a windshield goes through, it’s wise to take your car for windshield repair and/or maintenance — by repairing chips and cracks as soon as they occur, you’ll save money and time. If the repairs are done properly, the strength of the windshield will be enhanced — reducing optical distraction, restricts damage areas and maintains a smooth surface for the wipers to operate on.