Pre-stressed translucent panels made of innovative 3D glass components DSC-integrated, for safety and active building façades

The widespread use of glazed envelopes, especially in high-rise buildings, is pushing building designers and researchers to the development of novel solutions for the improvement of their performance. At the University of Palermo, SBskin. Smart Building Skin s.r.l. (an innovative start up and academic spin off) is prototyping precast, pre- stressed and dry-assembled panels made of 3D glass subcomponents, able to reduce the energy consumption of buildings, to produce clean energy and to maintain high level of mechanical resistance against horizontal forces due to winds and earthquakes. The integration of glass subcomponents with third-generation PV technologies -Dye- Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) and/or Organic Photovoltaics (OPV) allow to build energy-saving and producing building roofs and façades reducing time and cost of panels’ installations thanks to the mechanical assembly system used both at component and building level. The paper aims to present and discuss the results of the numerical simulations for the assessment of the mechanical performance of these innovative building components for safe and active façades in high rise building, by underlining differences between the innovative dry assembly system and the wet assembly system traditionally used for assembling glass blocks. Actually, in high-rise buildings — quite often characterized by glazed curtain wall solutions, as shown by contemporary architectural trends — the problems related to the action of horizontal forces, such as wind and earthquake, must be taken into account, as well as the necessity to speed up the construction of the building envelope, in order to reduce the building costs. These are the reasons why SBskin’s panels are made of 3D glass subcomponents totally dry assembled by means of plastic profiles instead of mortar. Panels are prestressed by using steel bars positioned along the prevailing direction of panel and totally hidden into the plastic profiles positioned among the innovative glass blocks. The study conducted both at component and at subcomponent level, takes into account different possible materials for the realization of the plastic subcomponents of the panels.