‘THE DESIGN AND INSTALLATION OF GLASS FLOORING ‘AND FIRE-RATED GLASS FLOORING Michael S. Rae Bsc(Hons), M.Eng. & Greg Butler D.Phil. BSc(Hons). Roger Wilde Lid., 3 Station Road, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridge. CB2 6RP ABSTRACT ‘This Paper covers the technical, safety and structural aspects that need to be considered in the design of glass floors. It explores the various types of glass flooring that are available, and exposes their advantages and disadvantages. The paper briefly explains the relationship between the thickness of laminated glass that should be used for any given span and loading, and gives details of other safety aspects such as slip resistance testing in both dry and wet conditions - reporting the results of testing carried out at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Sheffield. ‘The paper also covers other technical elements of designing and installing glass floors, ‘such as the types of support used and methods of sealing and bedding the glass into position. In addition, the aesthetic aspects of glass flooring are explored. ‘The paper outlines new research and new developments in Fire-rated glass flooring and details the development of a new generation of fire-rated flooring systems that has achieved better than a 90/90 minute fire rating under loading when tested to full European and British Standards at the British Research Establishment in Borehamwood. All the elements of the construction of such a floor are explained including details of the load-transfer steel frame system’, the structural glass, the fire-resistant glass, and intumescent protection. Further to these developments, the paper also presents, details of a new generation of slimmer more elegant Fire-rated glass flooring units currently undergoing testing, “patent applied for GLASS FLOORING Abbrief history History does not record who first decided to try and walk on glass, but we do know that glass as a flooring material has been used for over a century. Many examples exist such as its use in the stacking areas of late 19" Century Libraries such as The University Library Princeton, The Burlington lowa Public Library, and The Morrison Reeves Library Richmond. Then, as now, the use of glass as a flooring material was seen as an ideal way of letting natural light into large and potentially gloomy areas of buildings. In the grand dance band era of the 20's and 30's the wider use of glass and commercial availability of glass blocks stimulated the installation of large under-lit glass floors such as the dance flor at the Knickerbockers Hotel Chicago, the pink under-litglass floor infront of the bar at the Providence Biltmore Hotel Rhode Island and the spectacular oval Rainbow’ room at the Hotel Baker, St. Charles Illinois (opened in 1928). The "Rainbow" room eamed its name from the dance floor which had 2,620 red, green, yellow, and blue lights beneath 300 glass blocks. Unti a flood in 1956, the lights could synchronize with the beat of the music, or produce pictures such as a heart, flag, star, or Christmas tre. 233LAMINATED GLASS FLOORS. The first commercial laminated glass was discovered by the French scientist Edouard Benedictus, when, in 1903 he accidentally knocked a flask containing a residue of nitrocellulose off a high shel. Instead of the shards from the flask scattering across the floor, he noticed that the shattered glass had more or less retained its shape. On later hearing of automobile accidents in which facial injuries had been caused by broken windscreen glass, he decided to convert his accidental discovery into a product that would help lessen the consequences of accidents. So in 1810 he patented his celluloid lamination process calling the resulting product "Triplex Relatively expensive and suffering from slow discolouration when exposed to UV light the early Triplex laminate product was primarily used as safety glass in road vehicles and in military equipment. But the continuing development of lamination materials finally resulted in the adoption in 1936 of polyvinyl butyral (PVB), and in 1938 PVB became available commercially. itis mainly due to the strength and clarity of lamination attained by PVB bonding that, allows large area glass flooring to be commercially viable and gives architects and designers flexibility not afforded to them by the simple use of glass blocks. ‘There are many types of laminated glass now available commercially for use in glass floors, but broadly they fall into two categories: PVB laminated glass This is a safety glass made by an industrial heat and pressure process that laminates two or more sheets of glass with a continuous flexible interlayer of plasticized PVB sheeting between them. Typically for most glass flooring use the interlayers are 0.76mm thick but in heavy duty products 1.52mm interlayers are used. Cast in place resin-bonded glass This safety glass is typically made by pouring a vinyl ester resin mixture into the cavity between two sheets of glass. Whilst stil fluid, any air in the resin mix is expelled and left to cure. Other resin mixes such as aliphatic urethanes can be used in this method and these may use other curing regimes such as UV light and the use of accelerators. The layer of resin is usually between 0.8mm to 2 mm thick and is typically contained by the Use of a 6mm clear edge tape around the perimeter edge, Advantages and disadvantages of PVB vs. resin-bonded glass floors ‘Table 1 highlights some of the advantages and disadvantages of the two major types of laminated glass used for flooring. Both have their use. For most large commercial applications the PVB laminate system is usually most appropriate on cost and safety grounds. There is a wide range of finishes and colours. available as standard and itis this system that we will be mostly referring to in the technical details given in this paper. For small applications or for those using highly specialised andior highly textured materials where artistic effect and not cost is the over-riding concer the resin-bonded system may be more appropriate. 24TABLE 1 ‘The advantages and disadvantages of PVB and resin-bonded laminates for use in glass flooring. TABLE PVB Laminate Resin-Bonded 1 PROS | A largely automated mass- Process does not necessarily need production process producing a high level of capital investment in consistent product, equipment. Has continuous plastic interlayers | Process is more flexible in the holding the layers of glass together, | ranges of size, thickness and types providing an extra safety factor of material that can be used. should all panes of glass be broken. CONS | !sless effective in laminating very _ | Generally a batch process which thick sheets of glass together ‘can be more labour intensive and less cost effective for large or Cannot easily be used for rough __| multiple production runs where and textured glass. consistency of finish is important. Many production units can not May be less cost effective for multi- handle pieces of glass less than _| layered laminates. 200mm x 500mm, INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS FOR LAMINATED GLASS FLOORING Laminated glass floors need a rigid flat support with a maximum deflection of L/500. Minimum support depths should be 20-30mm, and can be either two-sided or four sided, Adjustable pedestal support can also be employed such as those used in the external lass bridges at Computer Associates in Slough. Joints should be no less than 4mm, and 'ypcaly joints 6mm wie are used. The glass i installed onto continuous slicone sips of 60-80" shore hardness both beneath the glass and between the glass and adjoining surfaces. A hard wearing two-part polysulphide mix such as Arbocol 1050 is used to seal the top of the glass. Once bedded down onto silicone pads the dead weight of the panels és usually enough to prevent movement. For smaller panels or for panels not jointed at the edges, panels can be fixed mechanically or with structural silicone. FACTORS AFFECTING THICKNESS OF GLASS FLOORING ‘The thickness of glass used in a glass floor has a major bearing on the cost of the installation, and where cost determines the size and/or viability of a project itis always wise to look carefully at the factors determining the thickness ofthe glass inthe flooring before drawing up the finished design. Thickness has two major effects on cost. Firstly raw material costs are affected and this relationship is not linear, For example a PVB bonded triple laminate 46mm thick is typically .2 to 2.6 times more expensive than a 24mm triple laminate, Secondly, the large increase in weight of the glass ~ 115Kg/M* Compared to SSKg/M? means that transportation and installation costs will also rise. For a given laminate system, there are four main factors which affect the thickness of the glass to be used in any glass flooring installation. 235‘Specified Loadings The higher the loading the glass floor is required to take, the thicker and more robust the lass floor will need to be. For installations in the UK. a guideline to minimum loading ‘specification can be found in BS 6399: Part 1: 1984. However, this must be treated with caution and designers must take into account the specific need of the end user. For ‘example, it may well be that for a typical supermarket floor one might expect the Fequirement of 4.0 KN/ M’ distributed loading and a concentrated load of 3.6 KN as stated in Table 9 of the British Standard for shop floors to be sufficient. Perhaps to be on the safe side one might think to specify to 5.0 KN/M! and 4.5KN to cover “corridors, hallways etc subject to loads greater than from crowds, such as wheeled vehicles and the like.” But, what actually is the concentrated load imposed by the litle wheels of those big shelf restocking cages when fully loaded with cases of wine? ‘Support ‘The amount of support given to the glass flooring panel also has an effect on the thickness of glass required. For example, to support a distributed loading of SKN/M? a typical PVB bonded triple laminated square panel measuring 1000mm x 1000mm supported by a ledge 25mm wide would need to be 32mm thick if supported on all four sides. However, it would need to be 46mm thick if only supported by two sides, ‘Type of Glass used As a rule of thumb most glass manufacturers maintain that heat strengthened glass is approximately twice as “strong” as annealed or ordinary float glass, and that fully toughened glass is roughly four to five times as strong. It would seem to follow that using fully toughened glass would dramatically reduce the thickness of the glass to be used in glass flooring laminates and should be used throughout. In some cases it may be that this option is the best, but in general this is not ‘Toughened and heat-strengthened glass does have an on-cost over float glass but in the case of fully toughened glass this is not the reason why itis not always used as standard. in glass flooring. The real problem is that the tensile stresses inside toughened glass not ‘only give the glass added strength, but also give an increased vulnerability to short sharp ‘shocks particularly at exposed edges. This results in an explosive release of stress producing the fracture characteristics of small, relatively harmless fragments sometimes referred to as dice. In a laminated system, having glass shatter into these less harmful fragments has litle extra safety benefit over the larger sharper fragments resulting from the breakage of float or heat strengthened glass since all the fragments are held safely in place by the lamination, Glass flooring is very expensive to replace once installed, and so the added strength benefit from using fully toughened glass is counterbalanced by its increased vulnerability. in general then, heat-strengthened and ordinary float glass is preferred inthe laminate make up of glass flooring. The use of heat-strengthened rather than float glass is particularly appropriate for installations involving large panes of glass. In these cases reducing the thickness of the laminate by using heat-strengthened glass, whilst not necessarily reducing overall glass cost, reduces the weight ofthe glass, and this can reduce the installation and transport costs 236Glass Spans Fora given loading and laminate type, the most critical factor in the determination of glass floor thickness is the maximum widths that the glass has to span. For example, given four-sided support, a 1.0M" triple laminated glass flooring panel of dimensions 1000mm x 1000mm would need to be over 50% thicker than a similar panel of dimensions 2000mm x 500mm. TABLE 2 Glass size recommended to take SKN/M {for PVB Laminate with two sided support 200 4006008001000 Length of Span (mm) Tables 2 and 3 show the relationship between spans and laminate thickness required for aan imposed loading of 5.0KN/M“for panes supported on two-sides (Table 2) and four sides (Table3) for a system comprising a heats strengthened 6mm Top-sheet and two lower layers of float glass. TABLE3 Glass size recommended to take SKN/M? for PVB Laminate with four sided support 100 eee sorts, os 1000) 383 | bea bar on pa fie a oa B00 1000700 2000 Length of long side (mm) Other factors affecting cost ‘As with any other glass installation the use of non rectangular glass also has a significant, affect on costing - for example a circle of glass will cost approximately twice as much as ‘a square of the same size 237‘Many manufacturers also impose a minimum size “price” on complicated laminated glass panels such as those used in glass flooring, so that, for example any panel smaller than 0.5 M? will still be charged as 0.5M’ no matter what their area actually is. All of the above factors must be taken into consideration when designing a glass floor, bbut one must also bear in mind that having smaller panes of glass whilst reducing the ‘cost of the glass might increase the cost of the supporting structure. As a general rule for ‘mass produced PVB laminated glass, longer thinner rectangles of glass are likely to be more cost-effective than large square panels. This, however, may go against the aesthetics that the designer is trying to achieve and of course most things are possible at a price: Safety aspects of walking on glass ‘When thinking of walking on glass-flooring, end users often express a fear of slippage. ‘Traditional resistance reassurance has been by the means of sand-blast or acid-etched finishes and for low to medium footfall internal use this provides sufficient grip as well as being aesthetically acceptable. These types of finish tend to perform less well in wet conditions, and for external use or for circumstances where the floor is likely to get wet or slippery - kitchens, bathrooms, garages etc, a more robust slip-resistant finish is. required ‘One such finish is that offered by Eckelt Glas - the Austrian subsidiary of Saint-Gobain. In their LITEFLOOR range of PVB laminated glass flooring products they offer, as standard, a ceramic slip-resistant coating to the upper sheet of glass in a variety of patterns and colours. This ceramic coat contains a hard abrasive material such as carborundum, and is screen printed onto the top-sheet of glass prior to the heat- strengthening process. During the process the ceramic coat is “cured” and the abrasive frit beds down fusing into the glass giving a permanently fixed finish. ‘Whilst glass-flooring is not specifically included, there is a British Standard (BS 8204: Part 3: 1993 for in-situ floorings: Code of Practice for Polymer Modified Cementitious Wearing Surfaces) which covers slip resistance, More relevant is the United Kingdom Slip Resistance Group (UKSRG) guidelines issue 2, 2000. This makes use of two representative test methods; The Taylor Hobson Surtronic 10 Rtm micto-roughness. transducer (the Surtronic 10) to measure surface roughness and the Stanley TRRL Pendulum Coefficient of Dynamic Friction Test (The Pendulum) to measure the Coefficient of friction We have commissioned testing at the Health and Safety Laboratory, Sheffield to compare an ordinary sand-blasted glass floor finish (100% coverage) with four differently patterned samples of LITEFLOOR top sheet covering levels of “carborundum frit’ from 25% to 100% (see Figure A). Patter # 541 | gr” jgy Patter #523 Patter #552 egg 25% frit 40% frit 79% frit 46mm squares f 2mm stripes 1.5mm@ holes Gescvoresd MEM restos ina28mm_ 3) squarebox | a i ‘square box FIGURE A: LITEFLOOR frit patterns of samples tested for slip resistance at the Health and Safety Laboratory, Sheffield 238‘The UK Health and Safety Executive Guidelines HSG 156 covers slips and trips, and their Food Sheet No 22 gives a technical update on floor specifications for floors used in wet and slippery conditions. In their information sheet they state that using the Pendulum. test technique on a dry or wet surface, values of 36 or more are currently accepted to indicate satisfactory siip resistance. In addition their research has identified the levels of Rim roughness required to penetrate the squeeze-films caused by liquids with differing viscosities before satisfactory contact can be made with the surface being tested and Pendulum friction test results become meaningful. For clean water this value is given as 20m but as soon as other contaminants are introduced this value increases. For ‘example to prevent slipping on Milk a minimum roughness value of 45 um is required. Results of our testing at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Sheffield are shown in Tables 4 and 5. Table 4 ‘Mean pendulum slip-resistance test results for five glass floor finishes. TABLE 4 DRY CONDITIONS | WET CONDITIONS 100% SANDBLAST FINISH 79 00% EOnELT FR Paumsser zone |e | Pattern #523 — 40% FRIT Pattern #552 — 79% FRIT Table § Mean Surtronic 10 Rtm roughness test results. TABLE 5 UNTREATED GLASS 100% SANDBLAST 100% ECKELT FRIT Whilst the UKSRG guidelines do not recommend that these test results are used to specify a floor, itis clear that the pendulum test shows that the Ecckelt “Carborundum frit samples have a significantly higher co-efficient of Friction than the Sandblast sample. ‘When considering performance in wet conditions, all samples seem to have a pendulum value above 36 in the wet and should show satisfactory slip resistance according to the HSE information sheet. However, when looking at the Rtm roughness results, the 100% ‘sand blast sample does not have enough “roughness” fo overcome the squeeze-fim of ‘compressed liquid which forms beneath the shoe and prevents solid to solid contact ‘As with much good research t he results confirmed what we qualitatively already knew — you can slip up on wet sandblasted surfaces but a carborundum frit can overcome this problem. For external applications itis recommended that glass flooring is treated with a carborundum frit system with an overall coverage of 50% or more. 239Aesthetics Glass flooring is beautiful. It can provide the "WOW" factor in a building adding new dimensions to the optical environment of large potentially dark areas inside large structures. Aesthetically glass is very flexible and elements such as clear and opaque screen print colours; pattems, photographs; mirroring; heating elements; thin layers of stone, textured surfaces and integral lighting can be introduced Ina PVB laminate the interlayers can be coloured, clear or opaque. The glass quality itself can be modified to low iron “Diamante white", American blue or other coloured glass. The photographs below show typical installations Roger Wilde Ltd have completed demonstrating some of the many special features that can be introduced into glass floors. ‘St Georges Shopping Centre Bay Street, Malta. BDG McColl extemal circular shopping streets and long walkways Made to measure frit design with screen print on top and bottom of glass floor panels ‘Special lighting by Maurice Brille Project: Parkview Brentford Architect: Elsworth Sykes. Description: Glass atrium bridges outside the main lift shafts at the front of the building Features: long panels in stainless steel trays giving} an elegant yet cost effective installation. The “frosted” finish obscures details of ‘objects when viewed from below. FIRE-RATED GLASS FLOORING In March 2001 The first fully integrated fire rated flooring system was tested at BRE Borehamwood. This was a major test fully complying to British Standard BS 476 part 22; 1987 and European norm EN 1365-2-2000 and was designed By Roger Wilde Ltd in Conjunction with Eckelt Gias Austria and Vetrotech Saint Gobain UK. Until that time little testing had been carried out on horizontal fre rated glass, possibly because the potential market was thought to be too small in relation to the cost of testing. In addition, an elegant compact solution to the separation of structural stress on the walkable top sheet of glass to the fire-resistant glass was sought and it was the invention of a load transfer framing system* that was the key to solving this problem, 240‘The LITEFLAM System* ‘The first test was cared ou using a tent bed of 4.15 meres by 25 metres, The gla fre floor was fully loaded with 4KN/MF using weights distributed over the surface. The area of the floor was divided into 12 panels the largest of which measured ‘metre by 2 metres. "Test bed in construction using the Roger Wilde Patent pending framing system ‘The special load transfer framing system* was supported by a sub structure comprising main beams of 150mm x 100mm x 8 mm Rolled Hollow Sections (RHS) with cross ‘members of 80 x 80 x6.3mm RHS. Stee! plates lining the test bed aperture supported the steel members. All exposed areas of steel were coated in several layers of Intumescent paint. Details of the mid section supports are shown in Figure B. Figure B Liteiam Firefloor Deal chet Utoor gave wt = SSK) Sta, —f vegan —al | ‘60/60 LITEFLAM glass Firefloor, Chanel, London, “patent applied for This first test achieved a fire resistance rating for Integrity, Insulation and Load bearing capacity of 93 minutes. The first commercial installation of the LITEFLAM fire-rated glass floor was at Chane''s refurbished store in Old Bond Street designed by P. J. Carroll Associates. This installation was completed in November 2001 Other Fire-rated Systems Since the development of the Wilde system, T&W Ide Fire Products Ltd. and Pilkington have developed a composite system using a combination of Pilkington Optifioat and Pyrostop glass. Under 4.5 KN/M loading a 1.3M x 1.3M unit gave 72 minutes fire- resistance. At the time of writing, this system has not been commercially installed, 2aLITEFLAM Second Generation System For most domestic applications and many commercial uses a 90 minute rated fire floor is. ‘well in excess of stipulated requirements. in order to make the system more affordable and using the same ‘Load Transfer’ principle as before, a slimmer more elegant fire- rated glass floor was designed. This uses a thinner sheet of fre-rated glass in construction and a streamlined frame giving a total top to bottom thickness of 92 mm including the Frame. This was tested at BRE Borehamwood using @ single panel test bed measuring 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres. As before * the floor was loaded with 4 KN/MF. The system was designed to achieve a 30 minute rating, but the efficiency of the Wide design meant that the system actually attained 70 minutes integnty and 70 minutes insulation before the test was stopped, This new slimmer LITEFLAM has already been installed in large office developments in Kings St. and Baker St, and in ‘other commercial premises in London, Giasgow, One of four LITEFLAM glass bridges and Dublin installed at the Baker Street Offices ‘Areitects: Norman and Dawoam Associates LITEFLAM Double Glazed (DG) Unit ‘The very latest development from Roger Wilde Ltd. is the production of a compact doubie glazed unit with a top to bottom thickness of just 61mm. Designed for extemal use, this unit was tested under a loading of 1.5 KN/M“ using the single panel test bed at BRE Borehamwood. For the purpose of the test, a unit of dimensions 1480mm x 1480mm was tested and this achieved a fire rating of 85minutes insulation and 105minutes integrity The commercially available units will be just 750mm by 750mm square and whilst less design flexible than bespoke glass flooring, those LITEFLAM DG units will have a significant price advantage and willbe easier to install. In addition, the units can embody the latest developments in double glazed unit technology. For those architects who wish to comply with L2 regulations, the LITEFLAM DG unit allows the use of the latest soft coating Low E glass techniques and/or argon filing as an option in addition to fire-resistance. Installation of LITEFLAM DG CONCLUSIONS Glass flooring technology has made considerable strides in the last hundred years. With ‘careful design, glass floors have become more affordable and offer a safe, aesthetically pleasing, and flexible way of designing light into buildings. In the last two years commercially available fire-rated glass flooring has expanded the potential use of glass floors, and as further innovations become available the glass flooring market is predicted to expand even further. Acknowledgements ‘The authors wish to thank the following for their heip in the above: Eckelt Glas Saint- Gobain, Vetrotech Saint-Gobain, Dennis Eaton & Partners, BRE Borehamwood, H&S Laboratory Sheffield, Derek Anthony Ltd., PJ Engineering Ltd., and all architects who have ever specified glass flooring through the years. 242