METHOD FOR PRODUCING ILLUMINATED LAMINATED GLAZING, WHICH IS TRANSPARENT IN A NON-ILLUMINATED STATE

Abstract

A method of making a laminated glazing including at least two glass sheets bonded to each other by an adhesive interlayer, the method including, prior to assembling the laminated glazing, digital printing of one face, intended to be inside the laminated glazing, of at least one of the two glass sheets after their possible forming/bending, and/or of at least one face of the adhesive interlayer, by a homogeneous organic ink with a viscosity between 1 and 50 mPa.Math.s including 50 to 99% by weight of ultraviolet-curable resin and 0.05 to 20% by weight of scattering particles, and then curing the organic ink under illumination with ultraviolet radiation.

Claims

1. A method of making a laminated glazing comprising at least two glass sheets bonded to each other by an adhesive interlayer, the method comprising, prior to assembling the laminated glazing, digital printing of one face, intended to be inside the laminated glazing, of at least one of the two glass sheets after their possible forming/bending, and/or of at least one face of the adhesive interlayer, by a homogeneous organic ink with a viscosity between 1 and 50 mPa.Math.s comprising 50 to 99% by weight of ultraviolet-curable resin and 0.05 to 20% by weight of scattering particles, and then curing the organic ink under illumination with ultraviolet radiation.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the adhesive interlayer is selected from polyvinyl butyral (PVB), thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), an ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA), or an ionomer.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the organic ink contains 0.01 to 20% by weight of one or more rheology modifiers.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the organic ink contains 0.1 to 20% by weight of 1 to 20% by weight of thermoplastic polymer material in one or more organic solvents.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the thermoplastic polymer material is selected from polyvinyl butyral (PVB), thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), an ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA), or an ionomer, alone or in a mixture or copolymer of several of them.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the thermoplastic polymer material contains 5 to 45% by weight of plasticizer.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the scattering particles have a particle size defined by D90 less than 2 ?m.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the scattering particles are selected from non-luminescent TiO.sub.2, SiO.sub.2, CaCO.sub.3, ZnO, Al.sub.2O.sub.3, ZrO.sub.2 particles.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the organic ink comprises at most 5% by weight of luminescent particles, selected from luminophores, fast-decay fluorescent particles, or molecules coating non-luminescent particles.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the ultraviolet-curable resin is selected from a reaction product between a thiol and an alkene, an acrylate alone or as a mixture of two or more acrylates.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein, prior to assembling the laminated glazing, the adhesive interlayer has a roughness Rz of between 5 and 25 ?m.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the organic ink is printed directly onto the adhesive interlayer by single or multi-pass inkjet printing.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the organic ink is printed with printheads directly onto a curved glass sheet by single or multi-pass inkjet printing.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the printheads are mounted on a multi-axis robot and the one of the two glass sheets is fixed.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein the one of the two glass sheets is curved, wherein the printheads are stationary printheads and wherein the curved one of the two glass sheets is held by a multi-axis robot under the stationary printheads.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein there is both a movement of the one of the two glass sheets and a movement of the printheads adapting to a shape of the one of the two glass sheets.

17. The method according to claim 1, wherein the laminated glazing comprises a light source, wherein said one of said two glass sheets or said adhesive interlayer constitutes a light guide optically coupled to the light source, and to said digital printing which is able to extract the light thus guided.

18. The method according to claim 9, wherein the laminated glazing comprises a light source emitting light of a wavelength at which the luminescent particles are excited and re-emit light radiation in the visible region.

19. The method according to claim 1, wherein the laminated glazing has low solar energy transmission.

20. The method according to claim 1, wherein the laminated glazing comprises a functional film based on encapsulated liquid crystals or liquid crystals dispersed in a polymer matrix (PDLC), on electrophoretic particles dispersed in a medium, on particles dispersed in an electrophoretic fluid or a film of suspended particle device (SPD), or an electrochromic system.

21. The method according to claim 1, wherein the one of said two glass sheets intended to be more outside a volume delimited by the laminated glazing is tinted, while the other of said two glass sheets, the interior one, is clear or extra-clear.

22. A method comprising providing a laminated glazing obtained by a method of making according to claim 1, as glazing for a land, water or aerial vehicle, or as glazing for a building.

Description

Example 1

[0034] Success is achieved this time by preparing a homogeneous organic ink of viscosity ranging between 1 and 50 mPa.Math.s, by substituting for the UV curable resin of Counterexample 1, an identical proportion of UV-curable resin marketed by the company Sartomer (Arkema Group) under the commercial reference SR 238, viscosity at 25? C.=7 mPa.Math.s; it is 1,6-Hexanediol Di Monomere acrylate (HDDA).

[0035] This ink is very homogeneous in solution. We observe a good quality of deposition on glass at 50 ?m film thickness, as well as a good UV curing in one conveyor pass.

[0036] Into 99.8% of this ink, 0.2% of TiO.sub.2 is mixed in scattering particles whose particle size satisfies the relationships 100 nm less than D90 less than 700 nm. A homogeneous white solution is obtained which is stable for several days at rest. Good quality of deposition on glass and PVB at 50 ?m film thickness, good adhesion even on flexible PVB, good UV curing in one conveyor pass.

[0037] Optical evaluation of the transparency of a glass sheet coated with the transparent cross-linked ink, with and without TiO.sub.2, particles, is performed using a Hazemeter model haze-gard plus 4725 with registered trademark BYK?. It checks for total transparency according to the methods of the international standard ASTM D1003-Standard Test Method for Haze and Luminous Transmittance of Transparent Plastics.

[0038] The table below shows the values of [0039] TL: light transmission (Transmittance) [0040] H: Haze [0041] C: Clarity

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Specimen LT H C Ink without TiO.sub.2 91.9 0.53 99.7 Ink with TiO.sub.2 80.8 22.2 99.5

[0042] With TiO.sub.2, a substrate with transparent designs is obtained that degrades light transmission and blur only to a very small extent, and maintains clarity almost unchanged, compared to the absence of TiO.sub.2 particles. The use as automotive glazing, side window, rear window, glass roof, etc. is perfectly feasible in compliance with optical standards.

[0043] The designs formed with the TiO.sub.2 particles are capable of extracting light from an LED bar at the edge of the glass, for example, the glass sheet or PVB layer constituting both the substrate and the light guide coupling the LED bar and the designs. By using scattering particles of various kinds, and/or light sources of various kinds, or even luminescent particles of various kinds, the invention makes it possible to obtain a glazing capable of lighting in several colors, simultaneously or sequentially.

Counter-Example 2

[0044] 10% PVB is mixed into 90% of the HDDA UV-curable resin used in Example 1. The PVB is not successfully homogenized in solution.