Tempered Glass vs Plexiglass/Acrylic, Which Is Better?

Plexiglass (Acrylic) has a strong impact strength, it is half the weight of glass but 100 times stronger than glass, and 16 times stronger than tempered glass. The thickness of acrylic sheets can be more than 600mm, however the maximum thickness of common tempered glass is 20mm. The average hardness index of cast acrylic sheet is 90 degrees of Rockwell hardness, which is harder than tempered glass.

Acrylic also has other advantages that tempered glass does not have.

The light transmittance of acrylic is very good, generally the glass transmittance is 82-89%, the best ultra white glass can only achieve 89%, but the light transmittance of acrylic can go up to 95%, bring better visual effect. 

Acrylic has excellent processing performance, it can be machined, thermoformed, and injected into the special formula to achieve seamless splicing on site, which meet the requirements of a larger whole transparent plate without being affected by transportation and space conditions. The tempered glass cannot be reprocessed, cut and spliced. The maximum size of tempered glass from general manufacturers can be 6800mm*2500mm, it can not be made in seamless splicing, so it can not meet the requirements of the larger whole transparent plate. The world's largest single-board of transparent acrylic swimming pool -- Shenzhen Qinchengda Paradise transparent sky pool, whose floor is made of a full sheet of 2520mm*6250mm acrylic sheet using seamless splicing process, the tempered glass can do this.  

But acrylic has a disadvantage, that is low wear resistance than tempered glass. Tempered glass is a lot more resistant to scratches. Different materials should be used in the right place. If use acrylic to build the transparent walkway in the air, it will be easily scratched by the soles of people coming and going, so it is more suitable to use glass for the transparent walkway in the air. For transparent pool or sky pool, people is swimming with swimsuit, and will not bring sharp instruments, even if the human body's most sharp nails can not scrape the acrylic, that is why acrylic is more suitable.