Glass types identified by chemical analysis

Abstract Inductively coupled plasma—atomic emission speetrometry has been employed to measure the levels of Mn, Fe, Mg, Al, Sr and Ba in a reference collection containing 1350 glass samples of various types. The compositional and refractive index data of these samples have been examined by a number of pattern recognition techniques in order to identify groups of similar samples, and some of these groups have been related to manufacturers' products or formulations. The procedure which is used in casework for classifying unknown glasses is described, and it is compared with several alternative approaches to classification.