What is spandrel glass?
Spandrel glass panels are the opaque glass that conceals structural building components such as columns, floors, HVAC systems, vents, electrical wiring, and plumbing, preventing these from being visible from the exterior of the building. Curtain walls and structurally glazed designs often require the use of spandrel glass to achieve an architect’s vision of the finished project. Typically located between vision glasses on each floor of a building, spandrel glass can be either complementary or contrasting in color when compared to the appearance of the vision glass.
How many types of spandrel glass?
Shenzhen Dragon Glass offers a number of options for use with spandrel windows applications that allow the entire building exterior to be fully glazed.
Silk-screen printed glass, tinted glass, and Low-E coatings glass are ideal for achieving a range of visual effects and improved performance on spandrel glass applications.
spandrel glass panels are not designed to be viewed in transmitted light and the resultant color will vary depending on the thickness of the base glass. Before specifying, please contact us for advice.
What is silk-screen printed spandrel glass?
The principle for producing silk-screen printed spandrel glass panels is using inorganic glaze (also known as ink) printed on the glass surface and then heat to dried, tempered, or heat-treated. The glaze then is permanently sintered on the glass surface to obtain wear-resistant, acid-resistant decorative glass products. Glass silk screening patterns can be designed as per requirements.
Experienced engineers & operator is extremely important when producing silk-screen printed spandrel glass panels. The color of the ink and the uniformity of printing and pattern accuracy on the glass is affected dramatically by the experience of the operators and the engineers. Meanwhile, having a clean and temperature-stable room for printing is important also.
After the ink print on the glass and pre-heat, the patterned glass is placed into tempering machines. The high temperature will make the ink glaze on the glass permanently.
Spandrel glass panels can be glazed singly or as a part of an insulating glass unit to provide the shadow effect of adjacent vision units. The color choice can either complement or contrast depending on the coating or color of the external glass. Spandrel Glass can be insulated with a variety of materials to meet even the most exacting of standards.
Features of silk-screen printed spandrel windows:
- 1. The shading coefficient reduced
- 2. Control heat and light transmission
- 3. A wide range of visual effects is available
- 4. Provides uniform curtain wall appearance
- 5. Concealment of internal structure or services
- 6. No discoloration by internal condensation or deposit of volatiles
- 7. Durable
- 8. Silk-screen printed panels available with a choice of internal finishes
- 9. Toughened to BS EN 12150: BS EN 12600
- 10. Resists corrosion and chemical attack
- 11. Easy to install with minimal maintenance
Quality standard:
- AS;
- CE
- ISO9001;
- AS;
- ASTM;
- CCC.
Applications:
FAQs
1. Is spandrel glass tempered?
Spandrel glass must be HEAT TREATED to withstand high thermal stress. If the Spandrel is intended for an opening where safety glass is required by law or code or where human impact is a concern, the glass substrate should be TEMPERED. In other locations, the glass substrate should be ordered HEAT STRENGTHENED to avoid rare “spontaneous breakage” in tempered glass.
2. Can you see through spandrel glass?
The short answer is NO, spandrel glass panels is the opaque glass. The proper application for silk-screen printed spandrel glass is to install it in an opening that has a uniformly colored insulation or back-pan that eliminates the possibility of read-through or viewing the glass in transmission.
3. What is the purpose of spandrel glass?
Spandrel glass panels is used to conceals structural building components such as columns, floors, HVAC systems, vents, electrical wiring and plumbing, preventing these from being visible from the exterior of the building. Curtain wall and structurally glazed designs often require the use of spandrel glass to achieve an architect’s vision of the finished project. They are also sometimes used to create colorful aesthetic design elements in building projects.
4. What is available on silk-screen printed spandrel glass colors?
For silk-screen printed spandrel glass, we can match any color from pantone color system. There are currently over 23,000 colour matches.
5. Spandrel glass vs vision glass.
Often a project may require spandrel glass to harmonize with the vision areas of your building. When viewing the glass from the outside, the dominant visual characteristic is the exterior reflection. On gray, overcast days, a greater visual disparity is created between vision and spandrel areas due to the transparency of the vision glass and the perception of depth created by interior lighting. The non-vision areas tend to look flat and two-dimensional by contrast. By keeping the vision and spandrel glass construction similar (the same exterior glass color, coating, etc.) the contrast can be minimized under various lighting conditions.
6. Spandrel glass vs shadow box.
In addition to opaque glass spandrels, a technique called “shadow box” spandrels is sometimes used in spandrel applications. This concept involves the use of glass that has no opacifier, combined with a separate light blocking assembly, typically a rigid foil-backed insulation material that is taped to the surrounding framing system to block out the light.
Shenzhen Dragon Glass‘ versatile 6mm silk-screen printed spandrel glass panels can create the illusion of a 100% glass building. Through the combination of vision and spandrel glass designers can achieve a seamless glass effect for the facade of a building.
Contact us today, makes your spandrel glass a great product choice for next glazing project.
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