Distinctive features of
SciGlass 7.0 Professional
In the
version 7.0, some significant improvements are made in both functionality and
user interface. Because of the lack of room, they will be considered very
briefly.
Improved user interface
When
starting the program, you receive the main window containing extended toolbar
and the task panel in the left side:
By clicking
on the command of the task panel, you can directly come to the windows
responsible for the main functions of the SciGlass program.
The dialog
windows allowing to use the main SciGlass functions (building binary plot and
ternary property diagrams, choosing the spectral coordinates, adding the new
columns to the list of glasses, etc.) are significantly extended and more
convenient to use than in the previous versions.
Each
data-containing program window (list of glasses, list of tables, plot window)
has its own toolbar appearing below the main program toolbar that also makes
using the main functions more convenient.
Extended functionality
New query type: Search for
glasses of similar compositions
As it was
stated above, many glass property data, especially recently published ones,
contain large experimental errors. Therefore, specialists should treat the
published data about glass properties with some criticism.
The best
way to make you sure in reliability of glass property data is to compare them
with other data about the same property of glasses of the same or close
compositions, which were obtained in the independent way.
In SciGlass
7.0, there is a special interface for such comparison. Let us assume that you
would like to check the reliability of the Tg
value for the industrial glass Corning™ 7020 presented in the paper
by D.J. O’Brien, 1992 (see the table below).
For that,
please select the corresponding row in the table and then click on the line
“Similar compositions” in the task panel (or use the menu command
Options à Search for Similar Compositions).
You receive the query window. Press the button “Paste Composition”
to insert the composition of the glass under the interest into the query. (You
may also input a composition manually.) Then select the property (Tg) from the dropdown list in the
“Property” field. Thus, you have filled out the query form (see the
figure below).
Finally,
you should press the button “Run” to get the query results, i.e.
the list of glasses of similar compositions. The higher the glass is placed in
the table, the closer its composition to the glass under the interest is; the
sought composition itself is always in the first row of the list.
As we can
see, the Tg values for glasses of the
closest compositions (a few upper rows) are close to the above-presented value
(712oC). This means that the value under test is quite credible.
Building the plot and
working with the plot windows
In the
version 7.0, it is possible to build the plot in three kinds of coordinates
(for each axis): normal (linear), reciprocal, and logarithmic. It could help
you for instance when analyzing the viscosity data presented in the original
tables (see the figures below).
To change
the kind of the coordinates, double click on the axis title. The window
appears, where you may also prescribe the axis limits and increment (the last
option is available only for the axes shown in the normal coordinates).
Besides, it
is possible to use the mathematical functions of concentrations and the
properties. In particular, you may plot the refraction ratio (nd-1)/d (where nd is
the refractive index for the wavelength ~589 nm, and d is the density at room temperature) as a function of the molar
ratio Na2O/B2O3 for the glasses belonging to
the system Na2O-B2O3-SiO2 with
75 mol.% SiO2 (see the picture below).
Transformation of the
spectral coordinates
In the
previous versions of SciGlass, a user should manually specify the additional
information about the presented glasses: formula of colorant, refractive index,
thickness, and density, regardless of whether they are presented in the
original publications or not. It is not convenient. Besides, it is impossible
to specify different property values for individual glasses that might
sometimes lead to considerable errors when recalculating spectral coordinates.
In the
version 7.0, most of these problems are solved. It is possible to specify the
property data separately for each glass. At that, if the property data are
contained in an original publication, the program automatically considers them.
Moreover, even if these data are absent, the program proposes to use the values
or the refractive index and density calculated from the glass composition. The
last function is available for oxide, fluoride, and chalcogenide glasses.
Thus, in
the overwhelming majority of practical cases, a user should not worry about the
properties of glasses, which spectra are to be recalculated into another
coordinates.
Ternary property diagrams
In the
previous versions, the list of components available for building the diagrams
is limited by several dozen “basic” components. Besides, a user
cannot use the atomic percent for this kind of diagram. In the version 7.0,
these limitations are overcome so that you can select any component presented
in the database and use any kind of percent.
Besides,
the program can build the isolines of two kinds: based on the property values
calculated from chemical composition, or built by using the polynomial fit of
the experimental data. The latter option is especially useful if no method for
calculation of the property under the interest within the selected ternary system
exists.
Working with the list of
glasses
Here,
several new features are introduced into the program. The most important of
them is the possibility to view the number of glasses containing each chemical
element in the glasses satisfying the specified requirements. For that, you
could use the menu command Display à Distribution of Chemical Elements.
Below, the result of this operation is presented for the query for glasses
having
As we can
see, the most of these glasses belong to the system R2O-ZnO-PbO-Al2O3-B2O3-SiO2.
This information might be very helpful when developing the new glass
compositions with the prescribed set of properties.
This option
is available for the list of glasses obtained from all three types of search:
for experimental data, predicted properties, and similar compositions (see
above).
Conclusion
As follows
from the above-stated, SciGlass Information System allows to
solve various problems of both fundamental and applied glass science
connected with physical and physicochemical properties of glasses and melts:
- Search for the information
about glass and melt properties published worldwide starting from 1880th;
- Studying the concentration and
temperature dependences of glass and melt properties;
- Prediction of multiple
properties from chemical composition and temperature;
- Optimization of the glass
compositions;
- Search for new prospective
compositions of glasses satisfied multiple property requirements;
- Check-up the reliability of
published property data;
- etc.
It is
unlikely possible to describe all features and functions of the SciGlass in
this brief review. Only the most important of them (to the point of view of the
authors of SciGlass) are described above.
For more
details, please see the following papers and the references therein:
O. V. Mazurin, Glass properties: compilation, evaluation,
and prediction, J. Non-Cryst. Solids,
2005, vol. 351, N 12-13, p. 1103-1112.
A. I. Priven, General Method for Calculating the Properties
of Oxide Glasses and Glass-Forming Melts from their Composition and
Temperature, Glass Technology, 2004,
vol. 45, N 6, p. 244-254.
A. I. Priven and O. V. Mazurin, Comparison of methods used for the
calculation of density,refractive index and thermal expansion of oxide glasses,
Glass Technology, 2003, vol. 44,
N 4, p 156-166.
O. V. Mazurin, Information Systems for Properties of Glasses and
Other Materials: Principles of Design, Glass
Physics and Chemistry (Engl. translation of Rus. Fizika i Khimiya Stekla), 1997, vol. 23, N 3, p. 176-185.