Structural Glazing for Demanding Applications

Variable insulation properties and individual design variations open up new opportunities for use in modern architecture for structural glazing.

Bauglasindustrie GmbH, which belongs to Pilkington (NSG Group), has had extensive structural inspections for thermal and noise insulation carried out for its Pilkington Profilit structural glazing system and is publishing the results at the beginning of 2010. Even in the double-glazed installation, the Profilit structures, combined with the thermally-separated frame profiles of the system kit, achieved respectable noise insulation results of up to 43 dB in the new measurements carried out by Stuttgart’s Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics. It was possible to achieve 57 dB with the triple-glazed installation (table 1).

The good insulation values prove that structural glazing is also suitable to realise facades with increased noise insulation requirements. As part of the measurements, a triple-glazed Profilit structure was tested for its insulation performance. The two internal layers of the structural glazing were given a “plus 1.7” coating. In this configuration, a thermal insulation value of Ug = 1.2 W/m2K was achieved (graphic 1). The measurement result proves that Profilit glass structures can also be used in challenging non-ventilated facades.