INSULATING GLASS

8 – 16 mm
Glazing
Outer Inner
cavity:
pane pane
Air
Argon
Krypton
SF

12 mm
FLAT GLASS AS A CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL

22

2 – 8 mm 12 mm
60°

Glazing
15° cavity

23

4 4

Glass

Evacuation opening
with soldered seal

Outside
Micro-spacer
Low-E coating

Soldered edge seal

U ~ 1,3 W/m2K

21 24

22 Typical build-up of a standard gas-filled insulating

glazing unit

23 Build-up of a triple insulating glazing unit with

21 Cold-bent perforated sheet metal integrated enclosed steel fabric to provide seasonal solar 24 Construction of a vacuum-filled insulating glazing
into the glazing cavity, Mediathek Vénissieux, control, with noble gas filling and thermal unit with a U-value of about 1.3 W/m²K
2001, Arch.: D. Perrault insulating coating in a separate glazing cavity (Spacia from Nippon Sheet Glass)
3.6

The bonded edge seal of a standard insulating glass unit features a
continuous, approx. 12 millimetres wide, shear-resistant glued alu-
minium rectangular hollow spacer bar. As a complete vapour seal can-
not be guaranteed, the spacer is filled with a fine-grained desiccating
agent (molecular sieve) to absorb any penetrating moisture and pre-
vent condensation from forming. To avoid corrosion of soft coatings,
the coatings are mechanically removed from the edges of the individ-
ual sheets before they are joined. A two-stage sealing system is gener-
ally used, in which the first stage is a butyl seal between the profile and
the glass. The second stage is a permanently elastic seal made from
polysulphide, polyurethane or silicone, applied to the outside faces of
the spacer frame _ Fig. 17. Polysulphide achieves better gas-tightness
than silicone but it is not UV-resistant and therefore should not be
edge area (warm-edge systems), which improves the U-value of the
whole glazing unit by between 0.1 to 0.2 W/m²K. With thermoplastic
edge seals (thermoplastic spacer, TPS) the edge spacer consists of a
desiccant-containing extruded butyl compound with a thermal con-
ductivity 1 000 times less than aluminium _ Figs 19, 20. [3.6/7]
Evacuating the glazing cavity minimises thermal conductivity. One
product currently on the market, Spacia, has a 0.2 millimetres vacuum
layer, the sheets are connected by micro-spacers and the glass edges
are hermetically sealed. The maximum pane size is about
2.40 m x 1.35 m. A U-value of 1.3 W/m²K can be achieved with a
Low-E coating _ Fig. 24. [3.6/6]
IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

used for an exposed edge seal such as is found in structural glazing. The detailed design must take into account the high self-weight of the
New types of edge seal systems such as spacers made of roll- units. The edge seal and the hermetically sealed glazing cavity con-
76

formed stainless steel strip or plastic reduce the cold bridges in the tribute to a series of special mechanical characteristics which influ-