JK-based manufacturer of curtain walling systems Brital says that its systems are specifically designed for the special environmental and manufacturing conditions that prevail in the Middle East.

'The system designs originate from the design house of one of Europe's leading facade engineering companies,' says Richard Lee, Brital's general manager.
Brital has developed curtainwall system products that reflect the growing need for environmentally enhanced thermal and acoustic performance and have recognised the need for 'greener' buildings amongst the commercial clients of the UAE.

Lee says that most of the systems brought into the region previously, were originally designed for cold external conditions that prevail in Europe and North America. Brital recognised early on that clients, fabricators and building users in the region required slightly different requirements with thermal breaking designed to accommodate hot outside conditions and cool internal.

He explains 'The conductive performance or heat loss from a facade is affected by a number of factors these primarily being convection, conduction and radiation. The main factors to be considered in the design of a curtainwall or building facade primarily relate to the issue of conduction or transmission of heat through the physical construction.

'From an architectural perspective, there is little that can be achieved by careful design to reduce the effects of convection and radiation from or into a building other than by the careful selection of spandrel and glass materials.

'The U value or the conductive loss through a building's facade is dictated by four factors, these being:

'The ultimate insulating performance of the facade being governed by the glazing or panel materials, the thermal losses through the framing system, the interaction between the two and the design by the curtainwalling subcontractor of the interface between curtainwall and structure, are aspects in which Brital likes to have an active involvement.'

Brital now offers proven systems which range from fully structurally glazed, two-sided structural glazing to fully-capped curtainwall. The manufacturing costs are lower than equivalent systems and a need for expensive capital equipment has been minimised by making all of the jointed aluminium connections between components square cut, thus reducing machine costs,' he says.

'One other important feature is that the systems have been developed recognising UAE manufacturing facilities and meeting the real market conditions. An important consideration, for example, is that we need to be sure that the site conditions don't reduce the mechanical integrity of bonded joints in structurally glazed curtainwall systems,' Richard says.

The systems were therefore developed so that the actual glazing process (the means of physically sticking the glass to the frame) could be undertaken in proper factory-controlled conditions thereby improving the finished quality.

'Obviously we are aware of the consequences of the failure of these types of bonds with the potential detachment of the glass from the building's elevation. Since much of the curtainwall assembly takes place on site, we really needed to know that this process could be completed correctly in factory-controlled conditions,' he says.

Lee - being well-known in the area, especially amongst the architectural profession and major fabricators - saw real merit in being able to offer facade systems to the market through good manufacturers providing whatever supplementary technical support that was needed from the UK through the Brital systems house.
Brital facade systems are only available through licensed partner curtainwall and cladding companies in the UAE.