InsIde thIs IssueThe secret behind new advanced high performance glass is magnetron sputter coating technology

Guardian World: Pleckgate High School

Best in Service: www.sunguardglass.co.uk

Mark Bristow speaks candidly about the glass and glazing industry and Guardian’s decision to install an offline magnetron coater for the UK market

News from Guardian Issue 18. Winter 2011

Guardian Industries invests £30 million in a high performance offline glass coaterGuardian Industries is pleased to announce the installation of a high performance glass coating facility, to be installed at our UK plant in Goole, East Yorkshire. Guardian’s vast experience in the world wide float glass market ensured that our UK facility was designed and constructed with an area dedicated to a coating facility. We are very pleased to announce, that the time has come to take Guardian’s commitment to the UK market to the next level.

Soaring energy costs, fuel poverty, global warming and excessive CO2 emissions are just some of the many reasons the UK government has committed to exceptional energy saving measures in building to reduce energy costs and CO2 emissions. The governments drive to save energy and reduce CO2 has seen deadlines set; all new build domestic houses built from 2016 should be zero carbon or carbon neutral, meaning improved thermal efficiency, and where possible energy production which can not only help to sustain the energy demands of the home in a renewable way, but also feedback to the grid where possible. Furthermore, new commercial buildings will also be zero carbon / carbon neutral by 2020. Taking the wider picture, the government has agreed to reduce CO2 emissions across the UK to just 20% of the 2006 CO2 level by 2050; that’s an almost unbelievable 80% reduction in CO2.

To meet these targets, the government has implemented a number of strategies which will ensure that the UK adheres to the agreed levels as closely as possible. Recent

Building Regulation revisions, specifically in Document L – Conservation of fuel and power, have seen the performance of building materials dramatically improve, raising the bar significantly between 2006 and the most recent level set in 2010. Continuing towards the zero carbon / carbon neutral target for 2016, the government has proposed further revisions to Document L, with the next revision going into consultation in December 2011, for implementation in April 2013, and the subsequent revision taking place in 2016. These revisions will see further performance improvements put in place for building materials to ensure the government can hit its CO2 reduction targets.

So how does this impact the glass and glazing industry? Over a quarter of CO2 emissions in the UK come from our homes, a further quarter of CO2 emissions from our home are a direct result of our windows. Therefore in the residential market alone our window performance dramatically impacts the UK’s overall CO2 emission levels. Guardian Industries is a world leader in coated glass, both in low emissivity glass which provides high levels of thermal insulation and in solar control which prevents buildings from over heating. Low emissivity and solar control glass dramatically improve the performance of our windows. New and advanced coatings from Guardian offer a range of performances to cater for different Building Regulation requirements. The installation of our own High Performance Glass Coater in the UK will ensure that the development of these energy efficient coated glasses continues and can be designed to cater specifically for the UK market. “This expansion reflects the confidence Guardian has in the plant and our strategy for growth,” said Pablo Isasmendi, Plant Manager. “With the investment in the new coater,

Guardian Goole will be better able to serve its customer base and develop new products specifically for the region quickly and efficiently.”

Guardian UK’s coated glass is currently supplied from Guardian plants in Luxembourg, Germany, and Spain, where inventory is allocated specifically for the UK market. This support has enabled us to develop and establish our coated products in the UK, preparing us for our coater start up. Being able to produce our own coated products in the UK will not only enable us to better service our independent customers, it will also dramatically reduce the carbon foot print of our energy saving glasses, through reduced transportation emissions.

Construction of the new magnetron coater has already started. The £30 million project is going to create 50 new jobs in our plant at Goole, for which recruitment has already begun. The full construction of the coater is expected to be finished by the fourth quarter of 2012. “The drive by the UK government to save energy has resulted in raising energy efficiency standards for both new and replacement windows for residential and commercial buildings,” said Scott Thomsen, President of the global Guardian Glass group. “Further improvements are already planned through 2020 that will demand even more energy efficient glass.” This is a very exciting time for Guardian Industries UK, and we intend to use our new coating facility to ensure our independent customers thrive and succeed well into the future working with Guardian High Performance glass products.

Glass is intrinsic to our lives; it brings light into our buildings, provides views out of our houses and offices, whilst maintaining a barrier that protects us from elemental forces. However, glass on its own offers little in the way of thermal insulation and magnifies solar heat gain, which can cause our buildings to leak heat in winter and over heat in summer.

Fortunately, this is no longer the same problem faced 10 years ago. With high performance coated glass it is possible to realise all the benefits large glazed areas can offer, without the compromise of low thermal performance or turning your living or working area into an overheated greenhouse.

Coated glass has been around for many years, however new glass coating technology has made it possible to create glazed areas that far exceed the performance requirements of current building regulations. This has opened the minds of architects and designers world wide, to produce buildings with maximum light transmission combined with solar control and exceptional thermal insulation. Historically, there have been two dominant means of coating float glass; the pyrolitic (online) process and the magnetron sputter (offline) process.

Pyrolitic coatings are applied during the float glass manufacturing process (online). This processes fires the coating directly into the surface while the glass is at around 600°C, which creates a coated glass which is both hard and durable. There are, however, many downsides to pyroltic hard coatings, as the process method means that there is only one option to apply a single coating to the glass. This greatly limits its technical performance, for example making it difficult for hard coat Low E glass to achieve U values lower than 1.4 W/m2K*. Secondly, the process control is far more difficult and can leave the glass with a haze as sunlight catches the coated surface. This can cause discolouration, for example leaving interior blinds and curtains with a slight yellow/brown tint due to the hard coat Low E glass installed in the windows.

the magnetron sputter coating method allows u values as low as 1.0 W/m2K* to be achieved, as well as exceptional solar control combined with a high light transmission

Magnetron sputter coatings are produced offline. This process takes the manufactured clear float glass and passes it through a Magnetron Sputter Coater. The coater contains a vast number of vacuum chambers, each containing a positively charged plasma which attracts gas ions towards a metal target (acting as the cathode) at such a pace that the ions dislodge atom sized particles from the target material. This sputters the particles over the glass in a perfectly even and uniform manner. Coating glass in this way means the glass can be passed through many different chambers in one production run, creating a stack of coatings on the glasses surface, with each layer performing its own function. This allows a coating to be built up on the glasses surface which is highly specified to a particular performance and aesthetic appearance. This method allows U values as low as 1.0 W/m2K* to be achieved, as well as exceptional solar control combined with a high light transmission. This high level of selectivity means that large areas of glass can be specified on almost any orientation of a building, with confidence that there is the right glass performance available to cater for the glazing orientation and environmental conditions. This ensures reduced energy consumption on air conditioning in summer, and heating in winter, as the high performance glass becomes a major factor in controlling the energy balance in the building. In

the fourth quarter of 2012, our own ‘offline’ magnetron sputter coater will be started up, ready to service the UK market. We already sell many of the products we intend to produce, however we will also be manufacturing other new and innovative products, which will cater more specifically for the market here in the UK and Ireland.

These types of soft coat glasses are slightly harder to fabricate into insulating glass units, however the improved technical performance and aesthetic appearance is unparalleled.

As part of Guardian’s ‘Best in Service’ support package, we provide a full set up trial to make sure that any customer using our soft coat glasses can process and manufacture the glass without issue.

We also provide technical training and sales support to help customers understand the products and their performance, and instil the confidence required to resell these glasses in their fabricated form into the market place.

For more information on coated glass training, please email uktraining@guardian.com

With targets set by the government to reduce energy consumption, and gas and electric bills soaring, ensuring you have the right glass to reduce demands on energy, in both not only in big architecturally designed buildings and in our homes, businesses, and public facilities. This is essential to meet the demands of future building regulations and CO2 reduction targets.

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the secret behind new advanced high performance glass is magnetron sputter coating technology

Anode

Anode

Magnet

Gas atom

Electron

Gas ion

Metal atom Target

GasInlet

GasInlet

Glass substrate

PlasmaElectrons and ions

Magnet

Deposited layer

Cathode

*4/16/4 Argon 90%

Images: Top - View inside a vacuum chamber; the glass rollers seen at the bottom of the photo pass the glass through the chamber

Above - The argon gas atoms are separated in the plasma into positively charged ions and electrons. The ions are attracted towards the target material, which is attached to the negatively charged cathode. The gas ions strike the target material, dislodging individual atoms that disperse to form a thin coating on the glass surface.

Pleckgate High School in Blackburn is the first school to be built as part of Balfour Beatty’s recent contract with Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen councils to rebuild 26 schools in the northern area by 2015.

The contract was agreed at the start of 2010 at a cost of £450 million. Work on the first project, Pleckgate High School, started immediately after the contracts were signed and was expected to cost around £25 million to complete.

The project designed by Aedas Architects who have offices all over the UK, as well as Continental Europe, Asia, America and the Middle East. They have created a modern, fascinating school design, which leaves a lasting impression. The high performance glazing used was installed by Dortech, and uses SAS (Senior Architectural Systems) Hybrid – Series 2 Aluminium Timber composite window system combined with Guardian High Selective Super Neutral 62/34 glazing, fabricated into insulating glass units by Dual Seal in Huddersfield. The Hybrid composite window system from SAS has a slim profile which allows maximum glazed area with a very sleek, contemporary look. The High Selective Super Neutral glass provides exceptional U values of 1.0 W/M2k, combined with excellent solar control, with a solar factor of

just 34%, therefore rejecting 66% of solar heat gains from the building. The performance is further enhanced with its high light transmission of 62%, making the glazing exceptionally neutral with some of the best performance available on the market today. This High Selective glass is just one of the products which will be planned for production from the UK

once our Coater construction has been completed.

The Pleckgate High School project uses 3,000 m2 of curtain walling and window systems, which were specified with High Selective glass to help control the environment inside the building, by limiting solar gain and providing optimum thermal insulation with excellent light transmission.

Architect: AedasDeveloper: Blackburn CouncilContractor: Balfour BeattyGlazing Contractor: DortechSystem Supplier: SAS (Senior Architectural Systems)Glass Fabricator: Dual Seal

Glass: High Selective SN62/34

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At Guardian we have an extensive range of high performance coated glasses, which were developed primarily for architecturally designed buildings. However, changes in the market are now seeing these products used in everything from social housing, schools and supermarkets, to orangeries and conservatories.

The vast range of SunGuard products all have specifically tailored performances to suit different applications, building types and orientations. The difficulty with such a range of glasses, is finding the best way to provide all the necessary information on the products, in a quick and efficient manner. With this thought in mind, we developed www.sunguardglass.co.uk

SunGuardGlass.com was developed and launched in 2008, designed specifically to cater for architects, designers and specifiers, so that they could gain easy access to all the information to specify any of our SunGuard glass products. The SunGuardGlass.com website was so successful that in January 2009 it was chosen “Best on the Web” by the readers of USGlass Magazine in the United States, which was a prestigious

accolade, timely received as Guardian US were in the midst of their ‘Build with Light’ architectural glass promotional programme. We are now pleased to announce that SunGuardGlass.com has branched off allowing the UK to use the SunGuardGlass framework to launch SunGuardGlass.co.uk.

This means that the SunGuardGlass.co.uk website can specifically cater for the UK market, promoting UK products without any danger of overlapping with products designed for different climatic regions and markets on other continents. This also provides the perfect setting to present the projects we have completed with SunGuard Glass in the UK, and establish easy links to the promotional work and initiatives we run, developing awareness for our products in the UK market within the design community.

SunGuardGlass.co.uk also provides easy access to our glass configurator, which is now kept up to date online, making it easy to ensure you always have the most up to date version available to you.

All literature, Technical Data sheets, processing information, and other information you will find useful are available through just a few simple clicks of this easy to navigate website.

Best in service: www.sunguardglass.co.uk

Guardian World Pleckgate High School

Just take a few moments to try it yourself at www.sunguardglass.co.uk

“It’s staggering to see the changes that have occurred in the glass industry over the last few years” – states Mark Bristow – Guardian Regional Manager for the UK & Ireland; Mark has been in the glass industry since 1978 holding positions from Technical Manager at Doulton Laminated Glass to Group Operations Director of Solaglas AGP (Leeds), and has developed an intricate understanding of not only the glass industry as a whole but more importantly of the glass industry in the UK, which holds strong market differences to the glass markets Guardian are so familiar with in continental Europe.

Mark was instrumental in developing the UK market, overseeing float glass distribution through imports from our Guardian plants on the continent. Once a strong market position had been established, Mark became the driving force, expressing the need for Guardian to invest over £100 million in the construction of a float glass plant in the UK. Mark was then responsible for preparing the market and ensuring that commercially the float glass line could be sustained once the furnace was lit back in 2002. Marks commercial awareness and intricate understanding of the UK market has driven Guardian’s enterprise at Goole from success to success. However it is now time for the next challenge!

“Developing the UK market for a float line the size of our plant at Goole was no easy task” states Mark. Guardian Goole has at times manufactured over 750 tonnes of glass per day, feeding not only the UK home market, but helping to establish new territories throughout Europe and further afield. Over the past few years we have seen the UK market change dramatically. When Low E was introduced into building regulations as a standard requirement in 2002 we thought that this would have a massive detrimental impact on the clear float plant we had just fired up, however in reality it had the opposite effect; it laid the ground work and the

change in business culture to develop a better level of product and performance. “We are experiencing the same thing again today”, Building Regulations are continually setting new performance targets, demanding better products which are more thermally efficient and save more energy; with every new requirement put in place by government, the glass and glazing industry finds a way to meet the performance and exceed it”.

There has been a lot of market research involved in the decision to open a new £30 million high performance coating line in the UK, as there have been many factors to take into consideration - establishing the right time to construct the coater has been crucial in anticipating the markets needs. Rising fuel costs and government targets have certainly played a factor, “if the government sets legislation demanding improved product performance in our buildings, then the market will reshape itself to accommodate”, however this has in no way been the only factor. “The glass and glazing industry is notoriously competitive, with companies always striving to differentiate their window performance from their competitions; we have seen this most recently with the window energy ratings (WER). When WER’s were created it was expected to take years for companies to get to an A rating, yet in reality it took months, now we see companies everywhere offering A rated windows as standard.” This has taken the USP (unique selling point) away from A rated windows, so how does the industry create a new USP? You only need to look in any of the industry press and the answer is glaringly obvious; increased demands for better thermal efficiency and product differentiation are moving hand in hand. Triple glazing and new advanced coated glasses are moving into the mainstream, which leaves Guardian with a choice, either accommodate the market or be left behind, and Guardian has never been a company to step away from a challenge! We have seen similar market patterns occurring on a world wide scale. The need to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions is a global problem, leaving markets in different countries with the same challenge, however the solution in all markets has been the same; dramatically improved product performance.

Guardian’s commitment to the UK market will not just allow us to service our independent UK customers more effectively; it means we can now develop products which have previously been beyond our reach. We already have products which we will be able to produce here at Goole and are designed to meet the needs of the future; way beyond current market expectation. There has never been a better time to be a Guardian customer than now!

editor: steven scrivens

email: sscrivens@guardian.com

tel: 01405 726882

Guardian Industries UK Ltd., Rawcliffe Road, Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, DN14 8GA England

Tel: +44(0)1405 726882 | Fax: +44(0)1405 726999 | E-mail: UKSales@guardian.com

Web: www.sunguardglass.co.uk | www.guardian.com | www.guardian-europe.com

special Feature

Mark Bristow speaks candidly about the glass and glazing industry and Guardian’s decision to install an offline magnetron coater for the uK market