Insulated Glass

The glass thermal conductivity is 0.688 while the air thermal conductivity is 0.027,glass has 27 times higher thermal conductivity than air.The air gap between double glazed units can take advantage of the low thermal conductivity inside to decrease thermal conductivity.

Insulated glass made with clear glass ,U value is only half of monothlic glass,in addition to high performance low-E coating,U value can decrease only 0.6W/M2.K.The glass has high termal insulation perfromance and used in passive house.

Insulated glass can reduce noise by 27-50 decibels, and 80 dB of traffic noise outside can be decreased to only 50 dBs to indoor.Combing with laminated glass,insulated glass sound insulation performance can be Maximized.

Dew occurs wjere condensation appears due to the difference between interior and exterior temperature.

Because the inner glass that is in contact with the indoor air is affected by the air barrier, even if the outer layer contact is low, there is no condensation on the glass surface due to the temperature difference. Insulated glass dew point up to -40 ° C ,if filled with argon ,dew point decrease to -80℃.

Even though the air space in insulated glass added the glass thickness,but the insulated overall weight is almost same as the glass weight.

6-12-6 insulated glass weight 30kgs/m2, this significantly decrease the overall building weight based on offering excellent thermal insulation and sound ,prfoof function.For skycrapers with hundreds meters high,the building safety can be ensured.

Insulated glass with structural silicon sealant warranty time is 10 years,actually the IGU lifetime can reach 20-50 years.

Solar reflective glass don’t conatin silver layers which ensures that solar reflective coated glass can be used as monothlic glass,it’s usually used in glass spandrels to match the insulated glass colors,most widely used in developing countries,its high light reflective and low SC values reflect most solar energy.

Hard coated low-E coating,also named as online low-E,or pyrolytic coated low-E.On-line Low-E glass is a functional film with low radiation performance on the surface of the glass ribbon on the float line by chemical vapor deposition and special materials on the float glass production line.

The biggest advantage of hard coated low-E, is it’s hard and no chemical reaction when exposed in the air,the coatings can be used in single glazing.

The emissivity is about 0.15,which is much higher than soft coated low-E coatings,so glass made with hard coated low-E has higher U value.

Soft coated low-E glass, also known as off-line low-E.It’s produced using vacuum magnetron sputtering coating technology.According to the silver layer quantity in the coating,soft coated low-E can be classified into single silver low-E,double silver low-E, and triple silver low-E.

Single Silver Low-E coating

EnduroShield® for Glass is an optically clear protective coating that chemically bonds to the surface, creating a non-stick barrier resistant to corrosion, etching, and staining. However, while cleaning is made easier and less frequent, the need to clean is not eliminated. Treated glass becomes both hydrophobic and oleophobic (water and oil repellent) protecting against most forms of dirt, minerals and grime.

To ensure the long lifetime and good thermal insulation performance,the edges must be sealed strictly to keep the space between glass panels.The spacer’s function are:keep insulated glass structural safety,insulate the IGU internal space.The spacer materials are:

• Aluminium Spacer:Traditional spacers used in the IGU are usually aluminium spacer,the disadvantage is high thermal conductivity.
• Stainless steel spacer:thermal conductivity lower than Aluminium,Stainless steel spacer has difficult in bending,so factories have to use steel connector to join the spacers,which make production efficiency quite low.So this is not widely used in IGU fabricators.
• Thermal break spacers, spacer compose metal and plastic materials.The main brands are Alupro,Technoform,Fenzi,Lisec. The is the most widely used warm edge spacers.ompared with non-metal materials,this kind spacer price is better and more convenient in production.
• Non-metal materials,such as superspacer, TPS,glass fiber stripes.The main brands are QUANEX,they have series products that compose the butyl,desiccant,and structural sealant, so secondary structural sealant is not necessary.But because there’s no high efficiency production lines that can produce this kind of insulated glass,the promotion and market for non-metal materials spacers are very limited.

Argon is a kind of inert gas,compared with traditional air,Argin filled insulated glass have many advantages:

• Keep the IGU pressure balance ,glass burst due to the pressure difference can be reduced.
• Increase  insulated glass thermal property.Argon filled insulated glass U value is 0.2-0.3W/M2.K lower than normal IGU with air.
• Prolong insulated glass lifetime. prolong the desiccant service life in the aluminum spacer frame.
• Protect the low-E coating. Decreasing the low-E coating oxidation rate and prolonging the lifetime of the coated glass.
• the heat convection in the insulated glass can be slowed down, and the sound insulation and noise reduction effect can be further improved.

There’re two kinds sealents used in insulated glass:Structural sealant & polysulfide sealant.

• Polysulfide sealant:Excellent resistance to high&low temperature and sealing performance.
• Structural silicon Sealant: High elasticity and high modulus,long lifetime,better structural performance.

Capillary tube is small stainless steel tube with only 1mm diameter,it’s installed on insulated glass edge(from aluminium spacer bar) and certain parts(around 50mm) is exposed outside to keep air flow inside and outside glass.

Capillary tube is used in insulated glass to balance the air pressure inside and outside of insulted glass to avoid glass contract or expand after installation.

Decorative grills is also made with aluminium profiles,Different from aluminium spacer bar,it’s used in glass middle,or glass center,it doesn’t support the insulated but only have decorative function.The grill color can be customized to be same as the windows frame,but do pay attention to the bar position to keep all cross bars in windows&doors paralled.

Architects and designers in MEGA areas like to insert U channels at glass edge,the U channel will be embedded with the aluminium frame and work as supporting point for the glass,this will cause bigger and thicker spacer (over 20mm) and increased glass costs.

Insulated glass can also been used in point supported glass facade instead of tempered glass and laminated glass.To fix the spider and claw safety,Morn can supply insulated glass with perforations ,sealed with aluminium Drings for better and safe installation.

When it comes to semi-stick glass curtain wall, or glass skylight,stepped insulated glass,or offset insulated glass is used.Silicon sealant can be applied on the glass edge to make it keep uniform color as glass  sealant.

Stepped Insulating GlassStepped-Insulating-Glass