The impact of reinforcing profiles on the fire resistance of aluminium glazed partitions Part 1.

Abstract

The inner walls of a building, which do not constitute its structure and therefore do not have loadbearing properties, are called partition walls. The main task of this type of element is the separation of rooms in a building, which is why they should be designed and constructed in a way that ensures, among others, compliance with fire safety requirements, including those related to fire resistance. There are many types of fire-resistant partition walls both on the European and global construction market, among which the most impressive effect is achieved by those using glass elements in their structure. These include aluminium glazed partitions, which are the subject of this paper. These structures are usually made of special fire-resistant glass positioned in three chamber profiles, made of two aluminium sections, connected by a thermal break, usually made of glass fibre reinforced polyamide. The chambers created in this way are filled with special insulating inserts, and the degree of filling depends on the expected fire resistance class, which is determined by an appropriate test. Large wall-height profiles of this type are usually further reinforced by screwing to them additional, special aluminium profiles. In this paper, the impact of using this type of additional profiles on the fire resistance of a glazed wall was analysed. The results of two walls with identical external dimensions and the same static scheme, made on the basis of the same glazing, from the same aluminium profiles have been compared, with additional reinforcing profiles applied in one of the tests. This article discusses the results obtained and the conclusions from the tests conducted.