Highly Efficient New Air Spacer System for Improved I.G. Production and Quality

Karl Ricks, Erbslöh Aluminium GmbH

Innovative new air spacer bar system and perimeter system with specific high speed sealing technology, special elastic bonder serving as 2nd sealant and new 2-way diffusion tight connectors. Warmedge version to come by the end of 2005.

The type of spacer bar plays an important - often underestimated - key-role for the efficiency and cost of an IG production as well as the long-term quality of IGUs. While spacer bars with high stability show a superior performance in all handling operations, they are, in general, more expensive and provide an even more stiff/ non-elastic perimeter edge system in the IGU, than we are already used to see with standard box-shape spacer bars with thin wall-thickness. On the other hand standard spacer bars require a more sensible processing that can slow down productivity and increase the risk of failures. IGUs with standard spacer bars and standard 2-step-sealing systems have a good, proven and commonly accepted quality, however, improvements are possible.

The new air spacer bar system combines high stability for easy and secure handling, even of large frame sizes, with highest possible processing sureness. At the same time substantial savings can be made in the consumption of 2nd sealant / adhesive and desiccant as well as due to a reduction of scrap, claims and sealing cycle times per unit. Various tolerances in the IG production are compensated or are no longer of importance now. Due to the new spacer bar shape, the optimised positioning and quantity of the sealants, with a special elastic bonder as 2nd sealant and a new double diffusion-tight straight connector, the quality of IGUs can be improved by a high elasticity of the perimeter edge system and an optimised primary sealing on the lateral spacer bar sides and in the connection areas on the back of the spacer bar ends. Finally the new system reduces or avoids incompatibility reactions, provides a maximum ventilation / air circulation within the window frame and almost completely avoids the negative effects of swollen 2nd sealant, which usually widens up IGUs.

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The Authors