Glaston JUMBO XXL allows AGC Interpane to maintain its leading-edge

Photo source

From the left, Daniel Bruckelt, Production Manager Insulating Glass and Margit Seidl, Deputy Production Manager Insulating Glass of AGC Interpane in Plattling | Photo: Glaston

Date: 7 March 2024

Tailoring a unique spacer application approach for world-class insulating glass

“I walk through our insulating glass production facility every day with pride,” says Daniel Bruckelt, Production Manager Insulating Glass of AGC Interpane in Plattling, Germany. “Not just because everything is so well organized and structured, but also because Glaston has given us a coherent concept for our unique insulating glass (IG) production. And this is what allows us to remain top-of-mind for challenging world-class projects.”

A GLOBAL PLAYER IN THE FAÇADE WORLD

AGC Interpane’s Plattling plant, located at the gateway to the Bavarian Forest, produces highquality semi-finished glass products and insulating glass. Since 2012, AGC Interpane has been coating glass up to 18 m x 3.21 m. This extra-long glass can be coated with a variety of solar control layers or iplus thermal insulation layers.

The 290-employee plant covers nearly the entire glass processing chain – from glass cutting to finishing and coating to insulating glass production.

COATING ON DEMAND

AGC Interpane’s Plattling site specializes in processing logistically complex, fixed-size insulating glass orders.

The company’s magnetron sputtering system, a physical vapor deposition method that produces thin films and coating, differentiates the company from its competition. The system allows AGC Interpane to offer high-quality façade glass from a single source.

Due to its highly functional range of thermal and solar control glazing products, the Plattling plant focuses primarily on contract business. Flexibility, high quality and decades of experience in this demanding field have made AGC Interpane a competent and reliable partner in project management as well as specialized insulating glass production.

Impressive reference projects include the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg and the St. Regis building on the Chicago River. The special feature of the skyscraper in Chicago is the six different coating variants on the glass façade, which imitate the course of the river.

THREE CUSTOMIZED SPECIALLY ENGINEERED GLASTON FEATURES FOR AGC INTERPANE

AGC Interpane has been a long-term customer of Glaston and the earlier brands that now belong to the Glaston family. The company currently has three Glaston insulating glass lines and one Glaston tempering line.

The most recent addition, the Glaston JUMBO XXL FLEX line, was customized for AGC Interpane. The line was ordered in 2021 and commissioned in April 2022. It allows AGC Interpane to automatically produce jumbo formats up to 3.3 x 6 m.

Earlier, these could only be produced semi-automatically or with additional manual effort. The line includes standard components for edge deletion, glass cleaning and glass inspection as well as several specially engineered features.

The first unique feature is the FLEXSPACER’TWINAPPLICATOR, a twin-headed applicator for the automatic application of Super Spacer® material including T-Spacer™ butyling.

“We have been pursuing a special strategy with our spacer systems, including a gray-edge seal – consisting of a gray spacer, gray butyl and gray silicone – which needs to be processed automatically. Although this was not available before, Glaston was able to engineer for us an automated solution that is still unique in the world today,” says Daniel Bruckelt.

The second feature is the UNIT’ASSEMBLER, a heavy-duty assembly, gas-filling and press robot, which automatically processes 4-sided stepped IG units with a stepped bottom edge of up to 250 mm. Other special formats can also be automatically filled with gas. Until Glaston made this automatic production possible, such units could only be produced manually.

“The high-quality technology built into this machine is very impressive – great mechanical engineering!” he continues.

The third special feature is the heavy-duty Glaston sealing robot SPEED’SEALER, which opens up new sealing possibilities. Its dynamic mixing system helps AGC Interpane quickly manufacture deeper sealings.

Until the Glaston JUMBO XXL was commissioned, AGC Interpane was limited by the area required for the manual assembly of these special façade elements and the overall insulating glass sealing thickness, maximum weight and lower edge of stepped units. Glaston JUMBO XXL has eliminated all these restrictions and now enables automatic production.

MOVING FORWARD NOW POSSIBLE

“Glaston has given AGC Interpane a unique constellation in the spacer application sector. We are the only ones in the world to have this configuration.

The UNIT’ASSEMBLER allows us to process special shapes and fill them automatically with gas. The SPEED’SEALER has eliminated any bottleneck at the end of the line. This means that it is now possible to automatically produce large insulating glass units weighing up to 600 kg / m,” Daniel Bruckelt says.

He concludes by saying that even with all the challenging technical system components, the overall joint project was fantastic. “We got what we wanted. This will help us move forward and eliminate any hurdles of the past.”