Abstract
Ventilated facades are becoming an increasingly popular solution for external part of walls in the buildings. They may differ in many elements, among others things: claddings (fiber cement boards, HPL plates, large-slab ceramic tiles, ACM panels, stone cladding), types of substructures, console supports, etc. The main part that characterizes ventilated facades is the use of an air cavity between the cladding and thermal insulation. Unfortunately, in some aspects they are not yet well-standardized and tested. Above all, the requirements for the falling-off of elements from ventilated facades during a fire are not precisely defined by, among other things, the lack of clearly specified requirements and testing. This is undoubtedly a major problem, as it significantly affects the safety of evacuation during a fire emergency. For the purposes of this article, experimental tests were carried out on a large-scale facade model, with two types of external-facade cladding. The materials used as external cladding were fiber cement boards and large-slab ceramic tiles. The model of large-scale test was 3.95 m × 3.95 m, the burning gas released from the burner was used as the source of fire. The test lasted one hour. The facade model was equipped with thermocouples. The cladding materials showed different behavior during the test. Large-slab ceramic tiles seemed to be a safer form of external cladding for ventilated facades. Unfortunately, they were destroyed much faster, for about 6 min. Large-slab ceramic tiles were destroyed within the first dozen or so minutes, then their destruction did not proceed or was minimal. In the case of fiber cement boards, the destruction started from the eleventh minute and increased until the end of the test. The authors referred the results of large-scale test to testing on samples carried out by other authors. The results presented the convergence of large-scale test with samples. External claddings was equipped with additional mechanical protection. The use of additional mechanical protection to maintain external cladding elements increases their safety but does not completely eliminate the problem of the falling-off of parts of the facade. As research on fiber cement boards and large-slab ceramic tiles presented, these claddings were a major hazard due to fall-off from facade.
Highlights
Ventilated facades are a type of external part of multilayer wall, which has a construction part and is usually a masonry or concrete wall, but it can be a wooden or steel structure
The falling-off were observed in the 6th minute test,temperature i.e., large-slab ceramic tiles first elements startedoftoelements fall off
As the results shown in the study [16] show, for fiber cement boards at high temperature of 400 ◦ C, the fracture energy increased in the initial phase
Summary
Ventilated facades are a type of external part of multilayer wall, which has a construction part and is usually a masonry or concrete wall, but it can be a wooden or steel structure. The wall is fitted with insulation, with consoles holding the elements of the substructure and the external cladding. This external cladding protects the aforementioned layers against environmental influences and gives the final shape and appearance of the facade. There is an air gap between the external cladding and the insulation, known as a ventilation gap. Ventilated facades allow for shaping external claddings from various materials, structures, textures or colors. Due to their high aesthetics, ventilated facades are increasingly often used as external parts of newly built buildings, but they are perfect for buildings undergoing renovations. The standard dimension for fiber cement boards is 1250 mm
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
