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BBVA digital bank uses Scott Bader's Crestapol sun panel

16 Nov '15

3 min read

The new digital banking group BBVA headquarters building in Madrid, designed by architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, is using composite sun panels made with Crestapol by Scott Bader, for cooling effect.

A total of 1600 sun panels in sizes ranging from 1.5 metres up to 4 metres were supplied and fitted to complete the façade of the new head office building. To meet the required UNE-EN 13501-1 fire standard for the building, the composite panels were vacuum infused using Scott Bader's matched fire retardant laminate system, comprising of Crestapol 1212 high performance urethane acrylate resin with intumescent in-mould spray Crystic FIREGUARD 75PA (IMS) EXCEL fire protection gelcoat.

All of the panels were produced by Innova Composite, a leading Spanish composite parts manufacturer. The sun panel composite design specification was developed by the external specialist composites consultant, Mr. José Cristos, who worked closely with the Innova Composite production team, as well as technical support personnel from Scott Bader who provided both materials selection and processing advice.

In particular for this project, Innova Composite had to ensure that installed sun panels achieved B-s2 d0 'low flammability' fire rating according to UNE-EN 13501-1 European standard for products used in construction, while also meeting all the other design and performance in use criteria; this included long term UV sunlight weathering resistance, critical given the hot Spanish climate, hence the requirement to PU overpaint the intumescent FR gelcoat, which is not UV resistant, according to a press release.

The laminate construction is a combination of Crestapol 1212 with 170 parts per hundred of resin (phr) by weight of alumina trihydride (ATH) filler to meet the low flammability fire regulation, with Owens Corning's Unifilo CFM (Continuous Filament Mats) glass reinforcement on either side of a thermoplastics PET foam core. This sandwich design format infused with the Crestapol 1212 resin provided the strength, stiffness and weight target for the panels across the size range.

Mr. Carles Gil, technical director for Innova Composite said, “We had excellent technical support from Scott Bader in both materials selection of the intumescent FR gelcoat with Crestapol 1212 resin and with help to optimise our infusion process at the high ATH filler level to achieve the EN 13501-1 FR specification to the requested B-s2 d0 level at a competitive part price.” (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India