German glass manufacturer Schott, has made history by creating the world's largest industrially-manufactured glass tube. The record-size tube has an outer diamter of 460mm, a total of 40mm wider than the previous record-setting tube. The tube measures more than 1.5m long with a wall thickness of 8.5mm. Developed with a speciality manufacturing process, the tube presents new application possibilities for the chemical, biological and pharmaceutical industries, among others. Manufacturing large outer diameter tubes is challenging because they tend to collapse under their own weight. Schott overcame this by developing the drawing process to manufacture the large tube. Due to the low thermal expansion of the glass the tubes can endure prolonged periods of exposure at temperatures above 100 deg C.
