Curtain Walls Serve many Purposes

Posted by John Smith on September 5th, 2016

Unless you're an architect or a structural engineer, the word curtain wall may be an unknown one to you. It is not an interior design aspect. A curtain wall is a type of concealment often found on commercial as well as office buildings. A curtain wall does not take any dead load from the building other than its own. Alternatively, a curtain wall does not take any roof or floor loads. Instead, it transfers loads to the core structure of the building through connections at the buildings various floors or columns. Basically, Curtain Walling London is like covering the face of a building with a curtain of aluminium as well as glass.
 
While aluminium as well as glass is fairly modern materials, curtain walls are not a recent invention. They have really been around for centuries. The first of these structures were made of stone. They were most regularly built to surround as well as protect castles. These curtain walls were characteristically connected by a series of several towers. The towers provided self-protective strength, as well as were also used as lookouts. The towers were the weight-bearing structures of the walls.

You won't find lots of curtain walls made of stone today. Recent builders construct them out of aluminium as well as Toughened Glass Shop fronts. Aluminium is a natural choice for modern curtain walls because of its excellent strength-to-weight ratio. It also weathers well, in part since it oxidizes naturally when exposed to open air, creating an extra barrier of safety against weather. Aluminium is less brittle than heavier metals e.g. steel, and is pliable sufficient to be moulded and bent into unique as well as customized configurations.  
 
Curtain walls are generally constructed by fashioning aluminium into a large grid-like frame. The spaces in the frame are unfilled with glass. While glass is the most ordinary material used, it's not the only one. Metal panels, louvers as well as stone veneer can also be used. The structure is attached to the core building at each floor as well as at its corners.
 
Glass and aluminium tend to be the materials of selection for commercial as well as official buildings when it comes to curtain walls. Using glass is beneficial because of the natural light that it gives. Buildings with these glass facades regularly save money on electricity because the necessity to use interior lighting during the daytime is reduced considerably. Plus, glass is aesthetically satisfying, creating a modern, open-air look both inside as well as outside the building.
 
Curtain walls are beneficial for other reasons too. They are resistant to air in addition to water infiltration and thus decay more slowly than other types of building materials. They also oppose forces of nature on the building, such as high winds earthquakes.
 
Besides the natural oxidation process which saves the aluminium in curtain walls, another coating is generally added. The two main options for coating include anodization as well as electronically-sprayed polyester powder. Both of these methods improve the weatherproofing of the aluminium as well as can be colour-matched.