advanced building skins 14 | 15 June 2012 - lamp.tugraz.at - Graz ...

Advanced Building Skins
It does not make much sense to apply panels of a complex structure to functional types that provide
responses to only a few functionalities.
The different shapes lead one to work with a diverse array of materials depending on the typical
processes used to craft these materials.
Ribbed structures typically bring to mind folds, laminates or extrusion, which in turn favor the use of
wide variety of metals, among which one finds steel. Steel’s high thermal conductivity and mechanical
capacity confirm the non-multifunctional character of the solution, which is instead focused on the
stability and airtightness of the façade.
Hollow corrugated panels are benefited by the monolithic nature of the amorphous materials made by
molding or extrusion. These same materials allow one to insert connectors between the strips of the
sandwiches prior to assembling them.
6 Resulting Functional Types Related with Different Morphologies
The possibilities resulting from this combination of functional types and morphologies are
summarized in the array accompanying this text. Obviously some morphologies fit better to a specific
functional type than to another.
7 Prospects for the Future
Figure 6: Array of possibilities for the inner wall of the ventilated façade.
The resulting array raises several possibilities for the development of prefabricated inner wall
solutions for the ventilated façade. After a detailed analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of
each of them, included in the complete document of the doctoral thesis “The inner skin of the
ventilated façade. Analysis, taxonomy and prospects for the future”, the next step has been the
development of one of those solutions.
In collaboration with iMat – Construction Technology Centre - we are working in the implementation
of this inner wall for ventilated façade based on a sandwich panel made with two thin exterior layers
of UHPCFR (15 mm each one) and a XPS core material which is the only responsible for the
solidarity between layers.
All the essays conducted so far have been very successful from the point of view of solidarity between
layers without the inclusion of specific connections. The panel is able to easily support wind loads up
to 200 kg/m³.
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