Thermo-breaking - beyond keeping the weather out

Canberra’s ‘Compass House’, Rudds Consulting Engineers’ two-storey headquarters, is showcasing Europe’s thermally broken aluminium curtain-wall system THERM+ by RAICO. This externally glazed aluminium system does much more than simply keeping the weather out.

Employing a fully engineered, EPDM-based double- and triple-sealing solution, the product provides water and dew-point management, pressure equalisation, reduction of heat transfer, optimised air-sealing and noise suppression. The entire system is free from using any silicone-based wet-sealing and is said to remained sealed for life.

Therm+ can achieve effective heat transfer values down to 0.8 W/m²/K (U_f-values) for timber, steel and aluminium-based window framing systems similar to the one at Compass House. This value corresponds to the minimum thermal fenestration performance required by the European Passivhaus standards. In addition, the system is airtight, can be used on flat roof sections and barely transmits noise (around 40 dB_R with 6-12-6 double-glazing units).

The product has been inherently developed as a structural building element. Large curtain-wall sections can be joined on the ground and easily tilted up in-situ, speeding up the installation process and negating the need for cranes. The system is strong and versatile - glass weights of up to 600 kg can be supported and glazing and/or architectural cladding elements of between 4 and 64 mm can be employed. THERM+ also comes with a suite of thermally broken insertion windows and doors (FRAME+).

The curtain-walls are designed to integrate solar technologies, be they building-integrated photovoltaic (BIVP) thin-film glazing units or building-integrated solar thermal (BIST) facade collectors. At Compass House, all spandrel-glazing units are either 7.1 mm thick BIPV or 40 mm thick BIST units. While the BIPV elements contribute to on-site solar power generation, the water-flown BIST collectors inject solar heat directly into the in-slab space-heating system.

Lou Forner of Rudds Consulting Engineers is very happy about “keeping the weather out and the saved as well as generated dollars” by using RAICO’s thermally broken THERM+ facade solution with integrated solar technologies.

By Dr Andreas Luzzi, CEO LAROS Technologies