Glass partitions provide an elegant, stylish corporate look to your work space.
Using glass to divide your home or office space is much simpler than you might think. Glass is a really versatile product, and provides many benefits over more traditional methods of constructing walls.
Many companies and suppliers will talk to you about the performance of their products, and how great they are. But what does that mean to you?
Most individuals looking for a glass office are looking for a simple space dividing solution that will give them a partitioned working area, with visibility of themselves and others, and that also might afford some level of acoustic privacy.
Like we said, many suppliers will talk about how their product, for example, provides 35dB(Rw) sound reduction, but in the real world, what does this mean? The table below should start to give you a better understanding of product performance.
Of course, there are other factors that can affect your office acoustics. Is your office/home generally quiet, or is it quite noisy? Is your building in the middle of the beautiful countryside, or are you located next to a busy motorway? Talk to us and we can point you in the right direction.
20dB
Normal speech readily audible
25dB
Loud speech clearly audible
30dB
Loud speech clearly audible under normal circumstances
35dB
Loud speech audible but difficult to distinguish
40dB
Loud speech faintly audible but cannot be distinguished
45dB
Shouting audible but cannot be distinguished
50dB
Shouting barely audible
55dB
Shouting not audible
In the interiors market, there are generally 2 types of glass that are used - toughened glass, and laminated glass. In a typical frameless glass partition installation, the type of glass used always has to be a safety glass, meaning it has been tested and can withstand certain loads that may be imposed upon it.
Here we try and give you a better understanding of what each is, and what this means to you.
Toughened glass, also sometimes referred to as tempered glass, is four to five times stronger than ordinary annealed float glass and, if broken, disintegrates into small fragments with dulled edges that are unlikely to cause serious injury.
Prepared sheets of glass, which have been cut to size, processed and edge worked as necessary, are heated to about 700°C in a furnace, which is just above the softening temperature of glass.
They are then chilled rapidly by cold air blown onto both surfaces.
This heating and rapid cooling process, changes the properties of the glass, resulting in the increase in strength.
In addition to being a Class A safety glass to BS 6206, the increased resistance of toughened glass to mechanical stress and to large temperature variations, render it ideally suited for use in structural glazing systems, where the glass is to be bolt or clamp fixed, and also in areas subject to high levels of thermal stress.
Two or more sheets of glass are bonded together with one or more layers of polyvinyl butyral (PVB), a plastic interlayer in sheet form. The principal benefit of laminated glasses is their performance under impact.
The glass may fracture but any broken fragments will remain firmly bonded to the interlayer.
The interlayer also absorbs impact energy, reducing the risk of penetrating the panel. When properly glazed, even safety grade laminates will resist attack, acting as a deterrent to burglars and normally remaining in place until replacement is convenient.
Depending on the arrangement, number and thickness of glass sheets and interlayers in the construction of the laminated glass, different levels of protection are possible including against firearms and explosions.
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