Firewall

This assembly of Multibeam side rails is designed to offer lateral support to the cladding assembly which provides the firewall performance of insulation integrity and xxxx for the periods derived from test or assessment. Periods up to 240mins are possible.

Firewall systems rely on the performance of the cladding. As the sheeting rails are relatively thin components they have very little heat sink capacity owing to their low mass. Therefore, when subjected to a fire resistance test, the sheeting rails in particular when exposed are heated very quickly and consequently lose their structural strength.

However sheeting rails whether exposed or concealed do retain sufficient strength to prevent the wall from significant lateral movement even after 240 minutes of exposure to a standard fire resistance test.

Therefore sheeting rails with a minimum thickness of 1.2mm and above may be used for both twin skin cladding and composite panels, providing they are structurally capable of supporting the wall between the column spacings for the normal load case.

In order to reduce thermally induced stresses caused by expansion of the sheeting rails during the early stages of a fire , slotted holes are provided, as tested, in the ends of the horizontal sheeting rails. The rails are shortened in length. Low temperature fusible washers are used so that thermally induced movement can occur unrestricted.

The cladding suppliers requirements should always be checked especially where special or unusual details are required.




Thermatile

This is a cladding system that utilises a vertically laid Kingspan Insulated cladding panel as a liner with an over layer of ceramic tiles supported on a carrier system fixed directly to the Kingspan insulated panel.

The dead weight of these systems require that vertical restraints between the horizontal Multibeams are angle struts and the diagonals are screwed rods.




Passive Thermal Wall

These are generally twin skin built up systems with a third out steel layer designed to act as a heat exchanger to collect the passive solar radiation on the outer sheet and transmit it to the air layer between the outer and middle sheet which is warmed before the air is passed into the building.

These systems will be much deeper and possibly heavier than traditional twin skin cladding so the Multibeam rail restraints should be angle struts with diagonal rods to support the additional weight.