DuPont Tyvek FireCurb, Breather Membranes Design, Lerkendal Hotel Norway, Pictures, Products

Tyvek FireCurb Breather Membranes

Housewrap breather membranes with flame retardant Performance – news

1 Oct 2013

A new landmark in Norway by Voll architects and Hent construction for AB Invest

DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ is the key to enhancing safety and sustainability at the new Lerkendal Hotel and Congress Centre.

DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap breather membranes with flame retardant Performance have been installed to the external envelope of the new landmark Lerkendal Hotel development in Norway:

photo courtesy of Isola, all rights reserved

DuPont Tyvek FireCurb

The impressive Lerkendal Hotel project, part of the ‘Lerkendal Stadion’ complex in Trondheim, Norway, has been set significant goals for success in line with the proud history of Rosenborg Football Club, for whom the stadium is home ground. With a volume of 35,000 square metres and a height of 75 metres, the 20 storey structure encompasses 400 bedrooms, plus state-of-the-art leisure and conference facilities, and aims for the highest standards of safety, efficiency and sustainability. In fact, the project is shooting for ‘championship’ status, by becoming the world’s most energy-efficient hotel.

Designed by Voll architects (working with contractor Hent AS and energy consultants Rambøll), the new building has been planned to conserve power both passively, through structural elements such as optimum airtightness (0.4 h-1. U-value for walls: 0.15 W/m2K) – and actively: through solar heated water; returned energy from elevators and cooling units; and by encouraging and rewarding guests to save energy. Each floor of the hotel will be filled one by one and unoccupied floors will become inactive in terms of consumption. The aim for total energy use in the hotel is a maximum of 50kw per square metre per year, significantly below both current average use and newer regulations.

12,000 square metres of DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap breather membranes with flame retardant performance have been installed as panels made off-site to the external envelope of the new 400 room Lerkendal Hotel:

Tyvek FireCurb Breather Membrane photo courtesy of Isola, all rights reserved

This forward-thinking project called for specialist and innovative solutions to protect the building, both during the construction phase and once in use. Apart from minimising carbon footprint while maximising interior comfort, another key factor in the design is, naturally, occupier safety – and the structure benefits from both in the form of DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap.

This pioneering new building product features a patented technology designed to improve fire safety and reduce costly fire damage, while providing an environmentally-friendly breakthrough solution that delivers a hi-tech breather membrane at a competitive cost.

Supplied with technical support, both off and on site, by Isola (distributor of DuPont™ Tyvek® products for Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and approved by Norwegian safety consultants COWI AS, 12,000 square meters of DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap have been installed into the building envelope to meet stringent requirements for airtightness, thermal performance and moisture control. The adoption of this DuPont product would also limit flame propagation within the façade structure, restricting damage and potentially saving lives in the event of a fire.

DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap breather membranes offering flame retardant performance combined with optimum airtightness for improved thermal performance have been installed at new 400 room Lerkendal Hotel:

Tyvek FireCurb Breather Membrane photo courtesy of Isola, all rights reserved

Adding superior flame retardant performance to the renowned properties of DuPont™ Tyvek® (such as reliable long-term weather protection, effective vapour diffusion and greater energy efficiency), DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ potentially limits or stops the spread of fire through the external envelope using innovative technology to reduce the flammability of polymer based substrates.

This solution dispenses with halogens, using instead a phosphorous containing agent to promote the formation of a ‘char’ layer at the surface when it is in contact with an ignition source. This thin layer of carbonized polymer is highly flame retardant and forms a barrier, slowing the release of flammable materials into the fire. Starved of fuel, the flame spreads over the membrane more slowly or not at all – and if the membrane does ultimately burn, it produces less smoke – another vital advantage for human safety. Rigorously tested, DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap has a fire rating of class B-s1,d0 according to EN13501-1.

Light-weight, robust and easy to work with, DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap was installed to the external envelope of the structure in the form of ‘ready-wrapped’ and carefully sealed panels, built off-site as separate elements in a facility owned by Skanska, about 100 km north of Trondheim.

12,000 square metres of DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ Housewrap with flame retardant performance has been installed, in the form of panels made off-site, to the external envelope of the new 400 room Lerkendal Hotel, Norway:

photo courtesy of Isola, all rights reserved

“This innovative new membrane from DuPont was the answer to combining better fire safety with improved thermal efficiency and interior comfort, for what is a very high-profile new development. Installation was simple and straightforward and we have every confidence in DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™” says Hans Olav Bømark of Isola.

Elin Tørlen Lønvik of COWI AS, the appointed fire safety consultants for the project, comments “Our risk analysis on this project raised the concern that, due to the height of the structure, any external fire that might spread through the façade would be very challenging to control and extinguish. Even though the probability of such a fire would be low, the consequences would be high, so it was necessary to impose special requirements on the facade design and materials.”

Elin continues, “Lerkendal hotel has a height, in Norwegian measures, beyond the ordinary and current codes did not fully cover the risk aspects. Hence, material requirements for the facade were strengthened, creating a challenge in terms of specifying flexible wind barriers.

Such membranes, used to help achieve density requirements, can adversely affect fire safety in certain circumstances as often they are made of materials that are easily ignitable, burn rapidly and emit burning droplets. We were therefore pleasantly surprised when the contractor, Hent AS, found a product with the necessary documentation that could fulfill all the key requirements, and we consider it very positive that a flexible windproof material with a fire classification of B-s1,d0 according to EN 13501-1 is now on the market.”

Ground was broken on the Lerkendal project in June 2012 and the hotel aims to welcome its first guests on May 16th, 2014, just in time for a crucial Rosenborg home game on Norwegian National Day. The overall budget for the build is NOK kr. 640 mill (approx 80 mill Euro) and once complete the hotel will be operated by the Scandic group, the largest hotel chain in the Nordic countries.

To learn more about DuPont™ Tyvek® FireCurb™ technology, please visit www.FlameRetardant.tyvek.com

About DuPont™ Tyvek® (www.construction.tyvek.com) – Invented by DuPont research and development laboratories in the late ‘60s as a premium material for personal protection and packaging, DuPont™ Tyvek® is manufactured using a unique, proprietary technology, and has, over time been discovered and developed as ideally suited to a variety of further applications and markets. Around 1990, it was first adopted as a breather and water proof membrane for roofs and walls for building construction in certain countries in Europe.

Between 1990 and 1995, it was introduced to the Nordic Countries (Scandinavia), Switzerland, Germany and then to the United Kingdom. Today, DuPont™ Tyvek® is marketed in 35 countries in the Europe Middle East and Africa region, in addition to the USA, Canada and many other countries in the other regions. In 2005, the entire range of DuPont™ Tyvek® membranes achieved CE certification, the first to do so in the building membrane market.

About DuPont Building Innovations – DuPont™ Tyvek® and DuPont™ AirGuard® are products of DuPont Building Innovations. From innovative energy-saving systems to beautiful and long-lasting surfacing solutions, the extensive offering of DuPont Building Innovations delivers safety, durability, beauty and energy efficiency, providing a major contribution to the modern built environment – across the spectrum of building and architecture, roads, bridges and other infrastructure and also to landscaping and gardens, as well as to the preservation or the renovation of contemporary and historical constructions.

The main products and brands managed by DuPont Building Innovations are DuPont™ Corian® (www.corian.com), DuPont™ Tyvek® and DuPont™ AirGuard® (www.construction.tyvek.com), DuPont™ Energain® (www.energain.co.uk), DuPont™ Typar® (www.typargeo.com) and DuPont™ Plantex® (www.plantexpro.dupont.com).

About DuPont – DuPont (NYSE: DD; www.dupont.com) has been bringing world-class science and engineering to the global marketplace in the form of innovative products, materials, and services since 1802. The company believes that by collaborating with customers, governments, non-governmental organizations, and thought leaders we can help find solutions to such global challenges as providing enough healthy food for people everywhere, decreasing dependence on fossil fuels, and protecting life and the environment.

DuPont® Tyvek FireCurb images / information received 15 Aug 2011

Tyvek Roofing Underlay + Tyvek Reflex Membrane

Norwegian Architecture

Location: Trondheim, Norway