CellularGlass(Foamglas)
The extreme insulator (Foamglas). Made by thermal expansion from recycled glass and carbon, it consists of millions of hermetically sealed glass cells. Absolutely impermeable to water and vapour, non-combustible and impervious to acids or rodents. Its strength lies in incompressibility: it is the only thermal insulator capable of bearing the loads of a foundation raft or roof car park traffic.
The warm foundation node. Before cellular glass, insulating under the slab was risky: plastic polymers under concrete weight compress over time (creep), causing floor settlement, and rot in groundwater. Glass never yields.
What is used to thermally insulate a liquefied gas tank at -160 degrees C, an industrial driveable floor or a museum flat green roof? When polyurethane foam rots and rock wool becomes saturated, Cellular Glass enters the scene: a black, mineral, eternal block.
Glass waste is ground to a fine powder and mixed with a tiny percentage of carbon, then fired at about 850 degrees C. The heat melts the glass while the carbon oxidises, creating CO2 bubbles that leaven the liquid mass. The result is a rigid blackish block of millions of microscopic pure-glass cells, hermetically sealed and separated, with insulating power that never degrades.
Cellular glass is the only building insulator with zero viscous flow (Zero Creep). It withstands colossal static and dynamic loads (up to 160 t/m2) for centuries without deforming a single millimetre. It also blocks the molecular passage of water vapour completely (mu = infinite), acting simultaneously as insulator and absolute vapour barrier.
Standards
European and international references applicable.
Physical properties
Usage environment
HOT BITUMEN INSTALLATION: rigid blocks are laid by dipping faces in bitumen melted at 200 degrees C and rubbing them together. The bitumen welds the surface glass cells creating a monolithic watertight block with no escape paths for water. CUTTING: on site, cut by rubbing a simple hand wood saw; the thin cell walls crumble locally releasing a pungent but harmless H2S odour.
Documented applications
TAV. DDriveable Flat Roofs / Parking Roofs
Insulation on slabs carrying cars or heavy vehicles, where expanded plastics would crush.
Foundation Slabs
Warm insulation laid directly on the blinding concrete below the reinforced concrete foundation slab.
Green Roofs and Roof Gardens
Intensive roofs where the insulation is permanently wetted by irrigation. Glass repels tree roots (root proof).
Thermal Bridges (Low Perimeter)
First course (plinth) of external insulation. In contact with snow and flooded pavements, it does not draw water up by capillarity.
Compressive Strength (kPa at 10% deformation)
TAV. E1600 kPa equates to approximately 160 tonnes per square metre. Cellular glass allows engineers to build entire hospital foundations literally floating on thermal insulation, with zero long-term structural settlement.
Used in these processes
TAV. PUsed in these systems
TAV. SOperational documents from this sheet
Specification clauses, site checklists and compliance dossiers generated from the graph — and kept in sync when a cited norm changes. Join the waiting list.
Discover Blueprint →Compare with other materials
Open the cross-material comparator with this material already selected, then add up to two more.
Compare material →