Innovation comes from the ability to continually review products and services whilst possessing the agility to quickly introduce new systems into the market. Crucial for all companies who wish to be successful, Aluprof now takes this to the next level by continually pushing the boundary of what is currently being achieved in the fenestration market and raising the bar through innovative design.
By way of example, Aluprof was the first company to introduce the insulator ‘Aerogel’ into their aluminium profiles to increase thermal efficiency with very little weight gain. Aerogel is a synthetic, porous and ultralight material which is derived from a gel, where the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas. The resultant material is still a solid, but with an extremely low density and low thermal conductivity. The ‘MB-86 AERO’ system by Aluprof was the world’s first aluminium window and door system to use aerogel offering a Uf value from 0.57 W/(m2K) and UW up to 0.8 W/(m2K). At just 86 mm wide the system is capable of carrying quadruple glazing to easily achieve passivhaus standards.
Pioneering fire rated aluminium systems for both internal and external use, Aluprof have for some time incorporated both ceramic and gypsum cores within their profiles with various mechanical fixtures to offer screens which give EI120 fire protection for the most robust installations imaginable. System design focusses on narrow sightlines and where required can always be matched in sightline with standard systems for non-protected areas of the building giving specifiers free reign on design. Pushing the boundaries of what is possible, Aluprof have recently worked with high specification glass processors of fire rated glasses to test and achieve glass-to-glass joints within fire screens. This Aluprof innovation allows specifiers to achieve longer runs of glazing which are not interrupted by mullions.
Staying with innovation in fire rated system, but this time in external curtain wall systems, Aluprof are the first company to design and test a ‘cap-less’ stick curtain wall system which achieves a fire rating of EI60. The ‘MB-SR50N EI efekt’ system has been used on various schemes across the UK where fire needs to be contained with the added benefit that the system can be seamlessly linked in with non-fire rated areas of curtain wall, again giving specifiers the freedom of design whilst meeting strict safety issues.
One of the most recent innovations is the development of new transom to mullion fixing arrangements on the company’s popular ‘MB-SR50N’ curtain wall system. Aluminium joints between mullions and transoms are often the limiting factor when using large glazed units in curtain wall. With the dead load being transferred from the transom to the mullion there is also a large turning moment as the glazed units sit to the front of the structural transom. The new development from Aluprof caters for a safe transom to mullion carrying capacity of 550 Kg at each of the transom, potentially allowing for a glazed unit of over 1 tonne in weight being accommodated into the MB-SR50N curtain wall system. This carrying capacity far exceeds many of the curtain wall systems currently available on the market.
The key to Aluprof’s innovation is the adoption of a group-wide iterative process that requires feedback on real project designs, requirements and installations, which is then brought back into the design department. Over time, product is enhanced and improved, and, along the way, every so often an innovation or step change will naturally follow. It will be interesting to see what the new decade brings for Aluprof’s systems.
Since setting up the Aluprof Project Office at the Business Design Centre in London the systems company has rapidly grown their specification influence in the UK with their high performance and innovative architectural aluminium systems. With overseas growth across Europe spreading into the Middle East and firm roots already in the East of the USA, the company is becoming a global player in facade supply. Further information is available on the companies website at aluprof.co.uk or direct from their UK office in Altrincham on 0161 941 4005.