Combining Solar Control Technologies for Optimal Performance

Abstract

Modern façade glass elements need to meet high standards of solar performance, as well as thermal insulation, while maintaining transparency requirements. These requirements are key to provide comfort for the building users and minimize energy requirements for heating and/or cooling. In today’s urban environment, likely additional requirements for reflectivity, glare and acoustic performance are in place. Advanced glass coatings have come a long way in meeting many of the requirements, and have developed to the extent that further development provides diminishing returns, either in their own performance, or in combination with other coatings. There are applications in the architectural space that have relied on other technologies to meet the requirements if the use of coatings was somehow restricted, e.g. warm bent glass, applications where edge deletion is not acceptable, or where coatings interfere with electromagnetic signal transmission. An example of such a technology are solar absorbing PVB interlayers for laminated safety glass. This paper illustrates how coating technologies and solar absorbing PVB interlayers can be combined to optimize façade glass performance.