CLADDING.

Abstract

With tall buildings now reaching to 100 stories or more, vast areas of exterior surfacing are created. one of the most important nonstructural or nonloadbearing architectural elements is the exterior wall, facing, or cladding system. Common materials used, which have developed in conjunction with tall building construction, are: steel, aluminum, bronze, stone, marble, granite, tiles ceramic and mosaic, precast concrete or other masonry materials, and glass curtain walls and cladding systems. Each of these materials individually is of significant importance to the overall building structure, but probably none more so than the glass curtain wall or window wall element. This chapter concentrates on this element of exterior cladding, which must protect the sensitive internal environment from rapidly changing external conditions. In addition, the wall has to withstand enormous forces and stresses, both directly and indirectly applied, as well as absorb all movements of the building structure. Refs.