Door Industry Journal - Winter 2019

Industrial Doors & Shutters 71 THE door industry journal winter 2019 Also online at: www.dijonline.co.uk Originally, the doors were designed for industrial purposes but now more and more customers are installing ‘Ultra Thermo’ doors on to their garages, workshops and utility rooms. However, customers are pushing the limits and asking for more. In fact, glazed sectional doors are gaining popularity. Small and large businesses use the benefits of glazed doors to showcase their products and services and save on electricity bills during the daytime. Traditionally, glazed doors due to their construction and the materials employed, had very poor thermal insulation. So, there was always a dilemma: beauty or efficiency. For this reason, Ryterna started to work on designing glazed sectional doors with proper standards of insulation – then one day they got an enquiry from an architect‘s practice. Architects working on an ‘Aviation Training Academy’ project delivered a challenging task for Ryterna to find the best solution to close an opening 6 metres wide and 7 metres high. The purpose of the opening is to move a flight simulator into the building. Actually closing that size opening is not a big deal, but matching customer‘s specifications was challenging. As you will know, a simulator is a highly complex and sophisticated machine. Therefore, ambient temperature and humidity must be exactly as specified by the manufacturer. So,the customer was looking for a door with the best possible U-value to save costs on heating. But, to make the challenge even tougher, they asked for a glazed sectional door in order to let the sunlight in during the daytime. Stepping up to the challenge, Ryterna decided to offer their newly developed 80mm thick glazed panels with improved insulation. The glazed panels are made of aluminium profiles with 30mm thick thermal break and triple acrylic scratch- proof glazing. In addition, the whole perimeter is fitted with improved double rubber sealing. The complexity of glazed panels lies in a combination of different materials. Basically ‘sandwich’ type door panels are made of either two or three materials. Meanwhile, seven or eight different materials are necessary for glazed panel production. As a result, glazed panels are not so robust as ‘sandwich’ panels which means that door size is limited. Therefore, to attain the size required, additional reinforcement profiles had to be installed. Due to headroom limitations, the door tracks were custom made and included a direct drive which meant that the gear has no torsion springs and the cables are wound on to a 6 inch (150mm) diameter shaft driven by a 3-phase electric motor. Above all, to meet regulations the door is equipped with safety edges for easy and safe operation. Incidentally, Ultra Thermo sectional doors were originally designed to be used purely as an industrial door without making any claims of having a nice appearance. Hence, to make the door ‘design-friendly’ it was necessary to put on some ‘makeup’. Firstly, the door colour had to match with the building façade colour. And secondly, zinc coated hardware was not acceptable to the architects. Luckily the Ryterna factory‘s paint workshop can spray or powder coat in almost any RAL or BS colour. Panels were finished to match the façade colour and the hardware was powder coated in white to match the interior of the building. Finally, Ryterna managed to achieve an overall U-value = 1.9 W/m 2 K which is incomparably better than the same design of conventional 40mm thick sectional glazed door. The job was accomplished in due time and the ‘Ultra-Thermo FV‘ (FV stands for ‘Full View‘) glazed sectional door matched the required specifications perfectly. Afterwards, the ‘Aviation Training Academy’ installed a flight simulator and successfully started a training programme. In conclusion, an 80mm thick glazed sectional door is a perfect choice for showrooms, workshops, services, car dealerships or even cafes. ‘Ultra-Thermo FV‘ glazed doors will give you a chance to not only showcase your clients‘ business, but also to reduce their energy costs. For more information visit www.ryternagaragedoors.co.uk 80mm thick glazed panel cross-cut view