Vacuum insulating unit
AssigneePPG Industries, Inc.
InventorsThomas P. Kerr, Shaow B. Lin, Peter P. Harmon, William R. Siskos, James L. Oravitz, Jr., Paul E. Shaffer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A vacuum insulating unit has a pair of glass sheets spaced from one another by a plurality of plastic supports. The supports have one end secured to one of the sheets and a low friction material on the other end. A flexible metal edge retainer is secured to sheets to provide a sealed compartment between the sheets. Air in the compartment is removed to put the compartment under negative pressure. A getter is provided in the compartment to adsorb any gas therein during sealing or using the unit. One of the sheets may have an environmental coating. Methods are disclosed for fabricating the unit and the supports.
Claims10
An insulating unit comprising:
- a pair of glass sheets each having a major surface;
- a flexible fluid-impervious edge retention assembly secured to marginal edges of said glass sheets to position the major surfaces of said sheets in facing relationship and to provide a fluid-impervious compartment therebetween;
- a plurality of supports positioned in said compartment, one surface of said supports secured on the major surface of one of said sheets defined as a first sheet and a low friction material on the other surface of said support which contacts the major surface of the other sheet defined as the second sheet to minimize friction acting on the major surface of the second sheet such that the sheets are slideable relative to one another;
- and
- said compartment having a negative pressure when compared to the pressure outside said compartment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.