Unique glass stairs introduced at glasstec in Dusseldorf
At the glasstec 2016 more than 1,200 national and international exhibitors presented their latest project and developments. One of them was the Dutch company ABT Consulting Engineers.
Crowd puller at the stand was a staircase railing refined by Thiele Glas and realized in cooperation with our partner Si-X. The glass rail is a kind of structure beam for the concrete stairs. That means without the stable glass string the stairs would not be stiff enough to fulfill the static requirements. The compound between the ultra-high performance concrete and the glass is constructed of stainless steel fittings that are screwed to the stairs and bonded to the glass. This construction was only realizable by TG-PROTECT®SGP which Thiele Glas used not only for the glass strings but also for the adhesion of the fittings. Thus the railing does not need any visible mounting devices while still conferring the necessary structural safety.
All in all, more than 40,000 professional visitors from over 100 countries visited the world’s leading trade fair of the glass industry to be informed about innovations. These included, among other things, exhaust air facades, electrochromic or informative glass. The importance of this trade fair for the industry is reflected in the fact that more than half of the visitors came from the top management. Additionally, the international involvement at the trade fair in Dusseldorf was once again much higher than at comparable events.
photo credits: ABT Consulting Engineers