Introduction
A curtain wall system is an outer covering of a building. Curtain wall systems are typically designed with an aluminium or steel structure and infilled with glass.
Curtain walls are commonly used for office and commercial buildings and use an abundance of glass allowing natural light to penetrate into the building.
By choosing the correct type of glazing, it’s possible to enhance the comfort in the building regarding glare, solar heat gain and noise, as well as providing a level of “invisible” security.
Significant glazed areas require precautions regarding the risk of injuries from impacting or falling. In case of glass breakage, especially from top floors of high rise buildings, the ability of glazing to retain glass shards and stay glazed within the frame can be critical.
Which products fill in
Eastman has experience with multiple interlayer products being used in the design the glazing for curtain walls:
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Saflex Clear, the conventional PVB interlayer can be used for:
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Safety: in case of glass breakage from human or accidental impact, the shards of broken glass will remain adhered to the interlayer providing a reduction in cutting or piercing injuries. With properly glazed laminated glass in a framing system, fall through protection may also be provided.
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Storms: laminated glass with adequate interlayer thickness is capable of thwarting wind-borne debris from penetrating the façade and subsequently allowing destructive internal pressurization in severe windstorms such as tropical cyclones, hurricane. The ability of the interlayer to contain the glass shards after breakage has been demonstrated to contribute to enhanced glass retention during seismic activities as well.
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Security: a laminated glass configuration can be incorporated to provide a sufficient level of protection against man-made, intentional attacks including vandalism and burglary, explosion resistance and ballistic assault.
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Saflex Acoustic PVB interlayer is an engineered tri-layer interlayer that provides enhanced sound damping between 1000 – 4000 Hertz (Hz) as compared to conventional PVB interlayer. The enhanced performance may allow the glazing construction to be designed using less air space and/or thinner glass to achieve the same sound reduction rating versus conventional and historic practices.
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Saflex Solar, a solar absorbing PVB interlayer, brings improved the solar control by reducing solar heat gain versus clear and conventional laminated glass without coatings. Saflex Solar can also be incorporated into single unit laminated glass with low-emissivity hard coatings or into insulating glass units (IGU) with or without low-emissivity glasses.
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Vanceva® Earth Tones collection and Vanceva Colors interlayers bring forth the possibility of using a large range of color in a façade or as interior glazing without having to increase glass thickness to achieve color intensity or be delayed waiting for colored glass campaigns or ordering large quantities of custom colored glass. Both products provide the flexibility to customize or modify and improve the aesthetic of the façade.
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Saflex Structural PVB interlayer can be used in laminated glass configurations targeted for floors, stairs, fins, balustrades, guards and canopies.
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Saflex High Protection (HP) and Saflex Storm interlayers can be used when enhanced protection from tropical cyclones and hurricane force winds and wind-borne debris are needed.
Furthermore, the various types of Saflex and Vanceva interlayers mentioned above can be combined between two pieces of glass or in the same glazing configuration to improve the overall performance of the glazing system and contribute to the optimum performance of the glass curtain walls.
