Abstract: A component of glass or glass ceramic having predamages arranged along at least one predetermined dividing line is provided. The dividing line has a row of predamages lying one behind the other. The predamages pass continuously through the glass or the glass ceramic with at least 90% of the predamages being cylindrically symmetrical. The glass or the glass ceramic has a material compaction of at least 1% relative to an actual material density in a radius of 3 ?m about a longitudinal axis of respective pre-damaged points. The relative weight loss per pre-damaged point is less than 10% and the component has a thickness of at least 3.5 mm.

Abstract: A description is given of a method of optimizing the design and operation of a reduction process for iron-containing charge materials (3), preferably in lump form, in a reduction shaft (1) to which reduction gas (9) is fed, for example from a fusion gasifier (6), with a reduced product (13), for example iron sponge, being taken from the reduction shaft (1) for the production of liquid pig iron or liquid primary steel products, in which method the reduction process is described by means of a mathematical-physical-chemical process model, the reduction shaft (1) is modelled multi-dimensionally, in particular three-dimensionally, and the process model is numerically evaluated and the results of the evaluation, obtained as multi-dimensional, in particular spatial, distributions of physical or chemical variables, are taken into account for the reduction process. This allows the reduction process to be quantitatively assessed in the entire reduction shaft and, as a result, the reduction process can be optimized.