The present invention relates to a curtain wall.
More specifically the invention relates to curtain walls that primarily consist of glass facade panels that are placed in a construction consisting of vertical elements, called posts, and horizontal elements, called rails.
In the case of relatively high weights of the facade panels and/or with fire-resistant curtain walls, the posts and rails are connected together by cruciform supports that are fastened to a post, and of which two wings are fastened to rails, and if need be rest on a nose of the rails, for example in a supporting structure made of aluminium profiles. It goes without saying that such supports can also be constructed with one wing for use with posts that only have rails on one side.
The facade panels, for example glass panels that can be relatively heavy, then rest on the supports, which transmit the weight of the facade panels to the posts via the rails.
Such supports are known from
However, such supports and constructions for curtain walls that make use of them have a number of disadvantages.
For example the supports, together with the rails to which they are connected, can bend under the weight of the supported facade panels. This can lead to a rail touching the underlying facade panel, which can be damaged as a result.
A solution for this is to use deeper rails, i.e. rails that extend over a greater horizontal distance, which is aesthetically unattractive and of course is more expensive on account of an increased use of materials.
Deeper rails also only have a limited effect on the rigidity of the rail, because while the dimensions of the rails are indeed larger in the horizontal direction, but they are generally hollow profiles such that the rigidity in the vertical direction only increases to a limited extent, while bending takes place in the vertical direction.
Another solution is disclosed in
Wings of the traditional supports cannot be made more rigid by giving them a greater height, because the height is limited by the vertical distance between two facade panels, which must be kept small.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide a solution to the aforementioned and other disadvantages, by providing a curtain wall as defined in claim 1.
This means in practice that the rail has no supportive function for the vertical forces exerted by a facade panel but that these forces are transferred directly to the posts by means of the supports.
As a result the wings of the supports may possibly bend slightly under the weight of the facade panels, without this bending being passed on to the rails.
Preferably the wing is essentially T shaped here, viewed in the vertical cross-section, whereby the reinforcing rib is formed by the head of the T.
For clarity it is noted here that this is a T turned by 90°.
This thus implies that the reinforcing rib extends both upwards and downwards. In practice this reinforcing rib, after construction of the curtain wall, must be alongside the facade panels, so that a part of the wing can be at a lower height between the facade panels, because the vertical distance between the facade panels must be kept small.
In a preferred embodiment the components of the construction are designed such that the wing can move with respect to the rail, whereby a movement is possible in the vertical direction over a minimum distance.
This thus means that the wing and the rails are not designed to be connected together, for example due to a complementary shape or by facilities for coupling means.
In a further preferred embodiment of the construction, the rail is provided with a detail for a seal on the top and/or bottom edge, whereby the detail or details are at least partially above or below and around the reinforcing rib.
As a result standard seals can be used to seal the space between a facade panel and a rail, while there is nevertheless room for the reinforcing rib.
In a further preferred embodiment the construction also comprises a screw profile, whereby the rail and screw profile have a partially complementary shape so that the screw profile can be inserted in the rail.
As a result it is possible to use a rail without a protruding ridge or nose, but which nonetheless has a good grip point for screws of a clamping profile. As a result rails can be made to the desired size more easily, because it is not necessary to remove a part of a nose.
When such a screw profile is made of plastic, it can also act as a screw profile and insulator at the same time.
The reinforcing rib of the wing, viewed in the horizontal direction, is at least partly between the rail and each of the two facade panels located above one another.
With the intention of better showing the characteristics of the invention, a preferred embodiment of a construction, including a support, for building a curtain wall according to the invention and the use thereof is described hereinafter by way of an example, without any limiting nature, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The part of a curtain wall 1 shown in
The post 2 and rails 3 are provided with details 5 at two edges in which seals 6 are affixed that can seal off openings between the post 2 and the rails 3 on the one hand, and a facade panel 7, for example a glass panel, on the other hand.
The rails 3 are provided with a nose 8, which is a double ridge 9 with a narrow groove 10 between them. The nose 8 protrudes out of the rails 3 in the direction of the facade panel 7.
A cruciform support 11 is fastened to the post 2 and rails 3, that primarily consists of a body 12 that is fastened to the post 2 by means of bolts 13 and two wings 14 that are each fastened to a rail 3 by means of bolts 14. In this case, but not necessarily, the support 11 is made of steel, but could also be made of aluminium or another metal.
A facade panel rests on a wing 14 of a support 11 via a small supporting block 15, and this wing 14 in turn partly rests on the nose 8 of the rails 3, and partly rests on the post 2 via the body 12.
An insulator 16 is affixed in the nose 8 between two facade panels 7 located above one another, which counteracts air circulation in the space between two facade panels 7 and thereby increases the insulating properties of the curtain wall 1.
The transition between two facade panels 7 is covered by a clamping profile 17 of two parts screwed into the insulator 16 and the nose 8. This clamping profile 17 clamps facade panels 7 against the rails 3, so that the facade panels are well secured in the construction of rails 3 and posts.
Because the rails 3 bend under the weight of the facade panels 7, there is a risk of the rails 3 touching the underlying facade panel 7, in the middle between two posts 2, which can lead to damage. Thus when designing the curtain wall 1 particular attention must be paid to the rails 3 being designed with sufficient rigidity.
The maximum vertical distance between two facade panels 7 is defined by the height H of the rails 3 in combination with the overlap, set by standards, between the clamping profile 17 and a facade panel 7 and a small clearance to prevent contact. It is undesirable here to increase the height H of the rails 3 with regard to the undesired visual impact thereof.
It is clear that in this traditional curtain wall the maximum height A of the wing, and thus its rigidity, is limited by the maximum vertical distance between two facade panels 7.
A curtain wall 1 that is composed of a construction according to the invention, as shown in
The support 11 is constructed such that only the body 12 contains holes 18 to fasten the support 11 to the post 2. The wings 14 are not designed to be connected to the rails 3. The result is that the support 11 is then only fastened to the post 2.
In order to make room for this support 11 a part of the nose 8 is milled away.
The wings 14 of the support 11 are provided with a reinforcing rib 19, which extends over the length L of the wing 14 and protrudes both below and above the part 20 of the wing 14 on which the facade panel 7 rests. Due to its height A the reinforcing rib 19 provides effective resistance against vertical bending of the wing 14.
The wings 14 have a cross-section that has the form of a tilted T, whereby the reinforcing rib 19 forms the head of the T.
The rails 3 are constructed with a deepened section 21 that is located between the details 5 for seals 6. This deepened section 21 provides room for the reinforcing rib 19, so that the reinforcing rib 19 has a height A that is greater than the maximum vertical distance between two facade panels 7, whereby the reinforcing rib 19 is between the rail 3 and the facade panel 7.
As can be seen in
As shown in
As a result, with one size of support 11 and various sizes of extension pieces, very many different thicknesses of facade panels can be supported. It is thus not necessary to make and keep a stock of a number of sizes of the relatively complex and thus expensive supports 11.
The extension piece can, depending on the material from which it is made, also partially act as an insulator.
In this construction the weight of the facade panels 7 is transmitted directly to the posts 2 via the supports 11, without this weight being transmitted to the posts 2 via the rails 3.
The construction shown in
Instead of this the deepened section 21 is constructed as an undercut groove that enables a complementarily shaped aluminium screw profile 24 to be inserted there, in which the screws with which the clamping profile 17 is fastened can grip. As a result a traditional plastic insulator can be used.
Alternatively, for better insulating properties this could also be a combined screw/insulator profile that is entirely or partially made of plastic.
As a result no part of a nose 8 needs to be removed, but the space between the facade panels 7 is filled with a separate screw profile 24 over the distance that is necessary, which facilitates making the rails 3 to size from rail profiles.
The present invention is by no means limited to the embodiments described as an example and shown in the drawings, but a support, construction and curtain wall according to the invention can be realised in all kinds of forms and dimensions without departing from the scope of the invention, which is defined by the appended claims.
This list of references cited by the applicant is for the reader's convenience only. It does not form part of the European patent document. Even though great care has been taken in compiling the references, errors or omissions cannot be excluded and the EPO disclaims all liability in this regard.