Guide
Choosing an interlayer for laminated glass
Laminated glass is two panes bonded over an interlayer by heat and pressure. ARG laminates with Kuraray interlayers: standard Trosifol PVB, coloured and translucent films, the stiffer Extra Stiff grade and SentryGlas ionoplast for structural work.
What does the interlayer do?
Laminated glass is a sandwich: two glass panes with a polymer interlayer between them, bonded under heat and pressure. The interlayer is invisible in the finished pane, and it is also the entire point of the product, because it only starts working when the glass breaks.
Kuraray’s technical manual describes the break behaviour: when a laminated pane cracks, the small glass fragments “still adhere to the Trosifol PVB interlayer and do not cause a major injury hazard”. The film stretches, the pane deforms and the broken glass stays where it is instead of falling out of the frame. That is the difference between a broken window and an accident.
ARG laminates with Kuraray interlayers only. Within that one brand there is a real range, and choosing along it is the specification decision this guide is for.
Standard PVB: Trosifol
The workhorse is clear Trosifol PVB film. Kuraray’s data sheet lists the clear range at 88% light transmittance, in film thicknesses of 0.38, 0.76, 1.14, 1.52 and 2.28 mm, so the interlayer can be scaled to the pane and the duty without changing the recipe.
A worked ARG example from the factory: 10 mm clear glass, a 2.28 mm PVB layer and 10 mm toughened glass. Written the way lamination is quoted, that is 10 + 2.28 + 10.
Coloured and translucent films
The same PVB comes as a design layer. Trosifol Colour is Kuraray’s coloured PVB range for laminated safety glass, with eight current standard shades. The Black & White films add opaque Brilliant Black, opaque Diamond White with high reflectivity and Shining White, a translucent white with 10 per cent transmittance. This is the family behind what is loosely called coloured or milky laminated glass: the colour is in the interlayer, not on the glass.
Structural grades: Extra Stiff and SentryGlas
Standard PVB is a soft polymer, and under long-term flexural load or high temperature it starts to creep. Where the glass itself has to carry load, Kuraray’s answer is a stiffer interlayer. Trosifol Extra Stiff (ES) is the structural PVB grade, introduced for structural glazing applications.
Above it sits SentryGlas, an ionoplast interlayer rather than a PVB. Kuraray’s portfolio states it is five times stronger and up to 100 times stiffer than conventional laminating materials, which is why a SentryGlas laminate can act as a structural element rather than an infill.
ARG’s own ordering of the range, from the factory rather than the catalogue: SentryGlas is the most expensive high-performance layer and stays intact even if the glass shatters. Extra Stiff is the grade below it. Standard PVB is the everyday security laminate that keeps a broken pane in one piece.
Which one should I specify?
For an ordinary safety or security pane, clear Trosifol PVB in the right thickness does the job. For a design pane, the Colour or Black & White films put the shade inside the laminate. For anything where the pane carries load, a canopy, a fin or a long span in heat, ask about Extra Stiff or SentryGlas and let the stiffness numbers make the case.
The honest answer to “which one” is always a build-up, not a brand name. Send the drawing, the span and where the pane sits on WhatsApp, and ARG will quote the laminate layer by layer. The laminated glass page covers the product itself.