ANALISYS: Sound insulation of the lift-and-slide door assemblies

English Section 17 Februarie 2015

Models of lift-and-slide doors are used to equip different types of buildings, acting as a communication interface between inside and outside and being included in the building enveloping system. Often, these solutions are used for reasons of architectural design, but there are more and more situations where such systems are chosen in order to optimize the internal areas by maximizing the effectiveness. Unlike traditional products ranging from windows and doors (operated tilt-turn) for the above mentioned solutions do not exist collections of values determined in advance on the indicators of sound insulation in accordance with DIN 4109. Also, the harmonized norm governing the production of windows / doors (EN 13451-1) does not offer further details, providing only those characteristic verification option based on tabulated values determined for sliding models. Another unacceptable limitation is that the maximum coefficient of acoustic protection (Rw) is only 30 dB. All this are reasons determining the experts to start a complex process of solving the problem. Measurements aimed at determining the acoustic protection achieved in the last twenty-five years in the IFT Rosenheim laboratory were compiled and the results of this integration process are described for the experts involved in the special windows and doors production. In total, over the mentioned period, there were conducted more than 200 independent tests, which were addressed to models made of plastic, wood or composite elements including metal profiles (especially aluminum with polyamide thermal barrier). Out of the total laboratory tests, 60 have targeted sliding assemblies (of which 59 were windows made of composite materials), and 144 have referred to the lift-sliding models (69 ensembles from PVC, wood or timber, 11 of aluminum, respectively 64 composite). The processes determining the degree of sound insulation were conducted in accordance with applicable standards governing the specific activity (currently EN ISO 10140, Parts 1-5), which impose the use of elements with areas larger than 6 square meters.