Glossary – our knowledge from A to Z

This type of glazing prevents the passage of flames, heat radiation, smoke and fumes. It becomes opaque in the event of a fire.

A generally vertical or near vertical outside wall to a building, often with a special decorative or ornamented design.

This is a permanent installation used for inspecting, cleaning and maintaining a façade which owing to its size cannot be accessed by other non-permanent installations. Such systems consist of cradles, movable ladders and horizontal rails that are fixed outside the façade.

A specialist who advises (usually) the architect or general contractor on all issues concerning façades.

A cradle suspended from the roof is useful for façade and roof geometries with some degree of complexity (e.g. projections, acute building angles). A slewing mechanism on the jib enables the cradle to be aligned parallel with the façade at all times and enables façade surfaces behind projections to be reached.

A part of a façade that is factory-assembled to form a completely watertight and vapour-tight glazing unit and on site can be attached to an existing support system without the need for additional work. In the case of particularly large façade elements, the glazing can be carried out on site in the installed condition.

This is a permanent installation used for inspecting, cleaning and maintaining a façade which owing to its size cannot be accessed by other non-permanent installations. Such systems consist of cradles, movable ladders and horizontal rails that are fixed outside the façade.

This type of façade is a multi-layer external wall design in which the outermost layer, which provides protection against driving rain, is separated from the layers behind by an air space.

The process of providing the geometrical framework conditions and the structural designs of the components in the form of drawings and/or tables so that the fabricator can manufacture the individual parts of the structure.

A glass edge with an angle other than 90°.

The term facility management (FM) covers all aspects of the management of buildings, plants and establishments. It is a strategic management approach designed to ensure that buildings and their systems, processes and contents remain available and continue to function. We distinguish between business, physical assets, services and process management. Facility management also includes, in particular, the maintenance of and repairs to parts of the building such as roofs and façades.

Concrete that is not covered in any way (render, cladding, etc.) and whose exposed surfaces usually have to serve an aesthetic function and achieve a certain appearance.

A fall arrest system is designed to prevent people falling from, for example, ladders or roof surfaces. Such systems may be in the form of horizontal and/or vertical anchor rails and/or individual anchor points. The person requiring protection wears a safety harness that is connected via a special safety line to a rail or anchor point.

Fatigue occurs when components are subjected to frequent, cyclic loading. In this case verification of durability will be required, which guarantees the durability depending on the loads, loading cycles and number of cycles. Wind loads are not generally regarded as cyclic loads.

The fatigue limit designates the long-term cyclic loading of a material or component without the material or the component being damaged.

An edge form that for constructional reasons forms an angle deviating from 90°; the acute angle is arrissed max. 2 mm.

The abbreviation for finite element method, a technique for analysing complex loadbearing structures. The complexity of some forms of modern architecture means that this is sometimes the only way of carrying out the structural analysis of a design economically. Experience is necessary for the implementation of this method and the interpretation of the results.

This is an external wall, usually of concrete or masonry, with individual, discrete openings for doors and windows. Such an external wall is usually also part of the primary structure of the building.

A composite material consisting of a polymer matrix reinforced with fibres.

A thread-like form of corrosion that occurs beneath organic coatings. It is caused by flaws in or mechanical damage to the coating. The coating becomes detached from the substrate, forced upwards by the corrosion products that form.

seele carries out all the processes necessary for the realisation of filigree steel-and-glass structures, from planning to erection. The combination of steel, aluminium and glass results in buildings flooded with daylight.

This is a gravel-filled trench (which may also contain a porous pipe) for collecting and draining surface water (rainwater). Such drains are used wherever soil sealing is prevalent. Also known as rubble or French drain.

The contractually agreed cleaning of a façade prior to handover to the client.

A readily weldable engineering steel with a high yield stress.

The ability of a building material to form an effective barrier to the spread of flames, smoke and fumes and/or prevent the transmission of heat radiation.

Fire resistance ratings are designated by the letter T for doors and F for fixed glazing followed by the time (in minutes) the construction can withstand the fire.

This is usually made from relatively soft materials. This term is usually applied to a bulkhead made from layers of rock wool treated with a fire-resistant coating. A fire stop can also be made from a hard material such as fire-resistant mortar.

Fire walls divide a building into fire compartments. In the case of a soft roof covering, a fire wall must also continue above the roof.

A glazing system (including frame, seals and fixings) that prevents the passage of flames, fumes and smoke for a certain length of time, but does not prevent the passage of heat radiation and hence the risk of self-ignition of any objects on the side of the glazing not directly exposed to the fire.

A fire-resistant window is a window element that owing to its overall construction (consisting of frame, glazing, seals, fixings, etc.) can withstand the effects of fire for a certain length of time. Such windows are classified according to the function of the glass used (fire-resistant glass) and the fire resistance rating required.

The Fachverband Konstruktiver Glasbau e.V. (Trade Association for Glass in Construction) is a collaboration between education establishments and industry for promoting R&D projects. The FKG takes part in the preparation of guidelines, stipulations and standards, encourages the exchange of information among its members and undertakes PR work.

This type of glass consists of a primary glass product (backing or substrate) and one or more layers of coloured or obscured glass.

According to German legislation a roof is classed as a flat roof when the pitch with respect to the horizontal is < 10°.

A form of pretreatment used to prevent stretcher strains in stored sheet metal. The sheet metal passes through a flex leveller prior to forming and this results in a plastic prestress comparable to a low degree of cold rolling.

This is sheet glass produced using the float glass method. This type of glass accounts for about 95% of the entire sheet glass output for all applications such as windows, vehicles and mirrors.

The most common type of glass production these days. The glass melt at a temperature of at least 1100 °C cools down to such an extent while floating on a bath of molten tin that at the end of this process it can be withdrawn in a solid form. The float method guarantees high-quality, distortion-free glass with parallel surfaces.

The most common type of screed for residential and office buildings. A floating screed is laid on impact sound thermal insulation and has no direct connection to the structural floor below. This prevents the transmission of sound or heat to other parts of the building.

This device closes a side-hung or swing door – also fire-resistant designs – made from any material, in any weight.

A special type of point fixing that on the outside finishes flush with the surface of the glass. Countersunk point fixings require thicker glass than fixings with a conventional head. The advantage is a flat surface for easier cleaning.

Free on board. Term of sale under which the price invoiced or quoted by a seller includes all charges up to placing the goods on board a ship at the port of departure specified by the buyer. The buyer bears all the risks of further handling and costs (e.g. transport, customs clearance) up to delivery to the final destination. One of the most important international rules for conventional forms of contract (see also ex works, DDU, DDP).

Tarnishing, age-related corrosion phenomenon, mostly a coating on the surface of the glass (mirror). In the case of insulating glass, fogging is frequently caused by a breakdown in the hermetic edge seal.

With this type of door the individual leaves are connected by hinges and suspended from a track. If the door is to operate properly, the hinges must line up exactly with the track. When open, the door leaves are stacked together at the side of the opening.

Hot-forming with hammering or pressing tools without permanent strain hardening.

The forging temperature is about 80 % of the melting point of the material used, e.g. 500 °C for aluminium alloys and 1200 °C for unalloyed steels.

This is the capacity of a material to change its form plastically without discontinuity.

A structural element that transfers the loads of the structure to the subsoil. Plain or reinforced concrete are the materials most often used for foundations.

This is the first phase of the glass melting process, the melting of the raw materials until the complete mass is transparent.

This test is used to determine the bending strength of flat pieces of glass. The advantage of this test over the three-point bending test is that the same moment load prevails over a wide region and therefore the failure is not inevitably at the point of maximum moment in the centre of the glass.

In this process sheet glass is drawn vertically and directly out of the melt through a ceramic die. The thickness of the glass is adjusted by changing the drawing speed. This process was registered for a patent for drawn glass manufacture by Emile Fourcault in 1904 and has been used on an industrial scale since 1913.

The arrangement of the cracks in a broken pane of glass. Fracture patterns vary depending on the type of glass. Toughened safety glass, for example, breaks into a large number of small fragments, heat-strengthened glass into large fragments. The standards demand certain fracture patterns for toughened safety and heat-strengthened glass.

One form of loadbearing structure for a building. The loadbearing structure is made up of individual linear elements assembled to create a primary structure for carrying the loads.

One form of loadbearing construction in architecture and building engineering. The framework of the construction is made up of elements with a primary loadbearing function.

A peripheral preformed strip made from an elastic sealing material in the window frame which separates interior from exterior by way of a cavity. There is an additional overlap seal in the frame to the opening light.

This is an agreement between legal entities or natural persons, e.g. a collaboration, an employer-employee relationship or a deal between seller and buyer. Such contracts are usually agreed in order to regulate fundamental aspects of the cooperation, but still allow freedom for individual situations.

A free form can be either two- or three-dimensional. A free-form surface cannot be described by a mathematical formula. Free-form surfaces for buildings and structures require considerable modelling input and place great demands on designers and builders.

This is a special form of corrosion where in the absence of corrosive media and in dry ambient conditions a material conversion process takes place at the surface of the metal which is caused by the minimal relative movement of two surfaces in rubbing contact. A characteristic feature of this type of corrosion is a black discolouration at the point of corrosion.

In this welding method the heat generated by friction is used for welding. To do this, one of the parts to be connected is rotated in a friction-welding machine and then pressed against a stationary part.

Fulgurite is sand that has solidified to glass after a lightning strike.

This type of hinge is suitable for wooden doors and frames only; it is let into the door leaf on one side, the door frame on the other. It is made up of two parts: a lower flap with a pin and an upper flap with a tube to accommodate the pin. The two flaps are either aligned or offset at a right-angle and rolled over to accommodate the pin.

A type of façade in which the panes of glass and their frames are pre-assembled to form a unit and then attached to the supporting structure by means of adhesive.

Besides light transmittance and a view through, functional glasses also fulfil other functions: low E glasses reduce the transmission of heat, solar-control glasses protect against excessive overheating, acoustic glasses protect against noise, fire-resistant glasses prevent the spread of fire, safety and security glasses protect against intruders and injuries.

Another name for quartz glass

see “fusingglass”

In this process various pieces of glass are melted together. One advanced application of this process is the production of large self-supporting panes of glass. seele has perfected the fine art of producing self-supporting panes of glass to satisfy the very highest demands.

In the fusing process pieces of glass, plus an appropriate coloured glass coating if required, are fused onto a primary glass product in a fusing furnace. Fusing glass panes or fusing artefacts are the result.

Abbreviation for “for your information”; e-mails are often forwarded with this abbreviation.