Ideal silicate glass compositions: From the perspective of network topology

The interpretation of commercial soda-lime-silicate and related silicate glass properties through existing topological approaches has received little attention, despite its potential to clarify the relationship between glass chemistry and material properties, including crystallization, physical characteristics, and mechanical behavior. Moreover, robust validation of topological constraint theory in glasses requires a substantial body of experimental data spanning a wide range of structural, mechanical, physical, and physicochemical properties across systematic compositional variations. To address this gap, the number of topological constraints per atom (nc) was calculated and potential Raman spectral signatures of topological transitions were analyzed for four series of soda-lime-silicate glasses. An exploratory analysis was then conducted to correlate crystallization, physical, mechanical, and structural properties with the resulting topological parameters. The analysis incorporated data from our previous studies and the broader literature to provide a more robust assessment. These topological assessments were complemented by measurements of load- and time-dependent crack growth rates in selected glasses to evaluate their mechanical reliability. The analyses suggest that, beyond the isostatically favorable nc range, a higher fraction of average six-membered (m ≈ 6) ring motifs with the established Raman-derived spectral rigidity transition constant (νH/νM) can serve as effective topological metrics for identifying candidate glass compositions with optimal properties. Overall, these metrics could provide a predictive framework for identifying and refining promising glass compositions without requiring exhaustive characterization across the entire compositional space. Furthermore, the Raman spectral topological signatures identified in soda-lime-silicate glasses can be recognized in quinary silicate and aluminosilicate glass systems, supporting the extension of this framework to related glass networks with comparable structural motifs. This approach may therefore facilitate the development of novel soda-lime-silicate and aluminosilicate glass chemistries tailored to diverse applications.