Systematic Evaluation of Curtain Wall Types

ABSTRACT: The most vital thing to be used to obtain a built environment is known to be the building envelope. Many materials have been used to tackle the issue of obtaining building envelope dating from early stage to provide shelter for man with the limited materials available like stone, wood, adobe, reeds; later concrete and steel. With gradual technological innovative changes, glass discovery came in contact which has been integrated with the building envelope as a building component due to industrial revolution in the mid-19th century. Smart use of glass material on buildings as a curtain wall system forming the envelope has become widely used in our contemporary architectural built environment to reduce the heaviness, add lightness and transparency to a building. Technology as heart of architecture is the art of building with new scientific inventions through analytical and experimental study on the behaviour of building materials. Glass curtain walling is one effective material providing an interface between the exterior and interior of a building, as Ching and Adam stated that “a curtain wall is an exterior wall supported wholly by the steel or concrete structural frame of a building and carrying no loads other than its own weight and wind loads”. This research will explore the use of glass material as a curtain wall system in relation to investigating the types of curtain wall systems with a system detail of each type of curtain wall discussing and evaluating the most suitable type to be used on buildings in terms of constructional material view, anchorage view and tolerance view, and through basic factors such safety, economy and environmental factor. Keywords: Curtain wall types, Glass, Building Detail, Economy, Safety. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………