The main Ulster University campus building by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS) was built into Belfast city centre, and is a 75,000m2 complex, designed to accommodate up to around 16,000 students, faculty and staff, with four facilities and departments in three interconnected buildings and a bridge, which was delivered in multiple phases. It is now a prestige example of modern city and education facility architecture, which has some interesting details and statistics, there are 19 different roof levels, several connected as roof gardens with a cafe, including glazed lantern-lights to maximise natural light inside much of the building, especially the main entrance atria, central stairwells and walkways. There are 18 passenger lifts, the technical facilities have more than 600km of data cables, mostly hidden under 95,000 computer floor tiles, in over 300 classrooms & other learning spaces, including a state-of-the-art 350-seat lecture theatre.
Externally the impressive facades consist of more than 650,000 facing bricks used in large structural panels with strict requirements for the joints between them: the horizontal joints were initially designed to be 50mm wide, and pretesting of the configuration had shown they needed to be able to compress by at least 20+mm during normal cycles of thermal movement: the vertical joints were the same initial dimensions and these needed to not only expand and contract with the lateral thermal movement, but also to accommodate longitudinal and vertical shear as well. In addition, the relatively wide and large movement joints needed to help prevent sound transmission from the external city streets environment to the learning spaces inside and to provide a high level of fire resistance.
Performance-wise, these seemingly onerous demands were absolutely no problem for the architects, as they were all achieved by specifying the Emseal Colorseal System, preformed joint sealing solution. In addition to the other performance and installation advantages, the Emseal Colorseal system could also be colour matched to the brickwork, for the more than 800 linear metres of these wide and high movement capability façade expansion joints on this project.
The key performance parameters of Emseal Seismic Colorseal VHE - CE include:
- +/- 50% movement capability (total 100%)
- 100% watertight joints
- No potentially damaging mechanical fixings into the structure
- Can accommodate changes in direction in both horizontal and vertical planes
- 3-Dimensional movement, including Shear, Vertical and Lateral (expansion/contraction)
- Excellent sound attenuation / acoustic barrier performance
- Up to 4-hour fire integrity rating (EN1366-4)
- Up to 4-hour thermal insulation (EN1366-4)
- CE Marked
For comprehensive technical support from the design office, right through to practical installation to completion on your site, speak to NCC, the exclusive Agents and Distributors of Emseal products and systems throughout the UK and ROI.
UK Website : www.emsealservices.co.uk
Email: Sales@NCCinAction.co.uk
Call: 01257 266696
