The present invention relates to novel and useful products and methods for mounting rigid insulation and facades to buildings utilizing formed steel wires which are much less expensive and difficult to use than traditional materials and methods, and include everything from the weather barrier to the exterior of the façade system on the building envelope.
There have been many ways to mount insulation to the exterior of commercial buildings including friction fitting the insulation batts between thermal clips and then screwing them to the wall with long screws and plastic caps, using adhesive applied stick pins and lock washers, and using thermally broken pins and lock washers. These methods are either very labor intensive, provide unpredictable results when adhesives are used, or which cause the need for penetrations through the weather barrier which poses risks for water intrusion and direct thermal bridging.
There are also many different Clip and Girt systems used such as stainless steel “L's” and “Z's”, fiber reinforced plastics, aluminum extruded shapes and others which are used with and without isolators to help reduce thermal transfer, and which also utilize the insulation mounting systems mentioned above. Most current clip and girt systems attempt to reduce thermal transfer to the building while being easy to use and price competitive. With ever-increasing ASHRAE 90.1 and other thermal standards of eliminating thermal transfer, there's a great need to develop an insulation and façade mounting system that surpasses the current products in thermal performance, ease of use and cost effectiveness.
There are also many different types of facades available to mount onto the Clip and Girt systems as well as directly to substrates of buildings. Most are accomplished using aluminum extrusions and other metal supports around the perimeter of the panels, and which generally use base extrusions which are mounted to the wall followed by the fabricated façade panels mounted onto these base extrusions. These fixings can be mounted to the side, back, and on the returns of different types of façade materials depending on how they're fabricated, with façade materials ranging from phenolic resins to aluminum plate or aluminum composites to fiber reinforced cements and stone finishes. All of these systems are expensive to fabricate, assemble and install so creating a real need to develop an insulation and façade mounting system that satisfies or surpasses all structural requirements for use in all applications such as seismic, of which very few facades have passed, and includes hurricane conditions alongside expected static and dynamic loads associated with commercial buildings.
In accordance with the present application, a novel and useful Wire Mounting Solutions is herein provided including specially shaped wires that will be used as structural attachments as clips for mounting girts as well as clips used in forming and assembly of multiple façade materials, and having multiple concept variations of each. The present invention will provide among the best thermal performances in the industry with minimal materials used in an effort to greatly reduce the carbon footprint and reduce costs. The façade mounting systems will provide high-end aesthetics and with increased potential to pass all current testing for seismic, hurricane, static and dynamic loads, and with simultaneous consideration for thermal movements.
The shaped wires will generally be made of fully hardened stainless steel or galvanized carbon steel spring wire and formed on wire bending machines. The wires may also be welded, press formed, twist formed together, 3D printed or made with other manufacturing or fabrication means to create any conceivable shape including but not limited to holes, springs, straight lines, built in lock washers and lock nuts, and anti-reversal mechanisms, etc. The wires may possess holes or slots for mechanical fasteners to either hold them in a fixed location or allow the slot to move at the fastener location. The wires may have plastics, foams, butyl materials, adhesives, self locking washers and/or other materials added onto or adjacent to them to cover the ends for safety, to minimize vibration, or to help connect to or otherwise interact with itself or other materials, and/or to further minimize thermal and acoustic transfer. The ends of the wires may have threads added to them by use of dies so that the male threaded ends can connect into female threaded attachments such as countersunk nuts when used on standard aluminum cassette panels. As an anti-reversal mechanism, the wires may be formed into coils that allow a fastener to be inserted and provide a minimal amount of expansion to allow it in, but reversing the screw will tighten the coils to help prevent it from backing out. There is no wire shape or feature that can't be made using these wire concepts to attach insulation and façade materials to buildings, to provide surfaces for dry-joint reveals to position against, to allow façade panel resilience with thermal expansion and seismic movements, and to minimize thermal and acoustic transfer.
The Wire Clips may be used over an isolator made of a material such as injection molded plastic in which the isolator helps to reduce thermal transfer and spread the pressure of the loads of the Wire Clips over a larger surface. The wire clip's surface area at the mounting hole to the substrate may be increased by adding to the amount of wire in contact with the isolator at the hole location. The wire's mounting hole will generally be formed in a clockwise direction so that the hole's shape doesn't open when the fastener is tightening. The end of the wire may also be formed upwards so that when the screw head is completely seated the upwardly formed wire end will act as a lock washer to prevent the screw from counter-rotation. These wire clips may be generally in a triangular shape to obtain maximum structural performance for supporting loads vertically and horizontally for both static and dynamic loads, and the triangular shapes may be made using one or more wires. The formed wires may allow for adjustability of the girts so that the building's outer surface may be leveled and planed prior to façade material mounting. If wire clip movement in any direction is needed for seismic, hurricane or other reasons, the formed wires may be made to be less rigid by adding wire length, using a smaller diameter, or a combination. The wire clips can be made to accommodate vertical, horizontal and diagonal sub-girts. The clip wires can be used vertically for walls or horizontally for roofs and soffits, and may be made of any shape wire including round, square, triangular or others.
The sub-girts will be fabricated from materials such as galvanized steel on a roll forming machine with various in-line punches and dies to add holes and slots, or they may be made with a turret press and brake press. The sub-girts may be shapes such as angles, hats, Z's or W's and attach to the wire clips in a manner which allows them to be planed and leveled on the wall without the use of shims. The sub-girts will have holes for the insertion and mounting of insulation and hardware mounting struts.
The frame wires for use with various façade materials may snap or friction fit onto a return leg of the panel and into the first v-groove and then fastened to it permanently using a mechanical fastener. With a series of these frame wires installed onto a panel, a special shaped handle may be placed into the reveal slot of the frame wires so that when the shaped handle is rotated upwards it will cause the frame wires to help form the return legs of the panels to the correct angles. When the panel is formed the frame wires are permanently installed. The frame wires may be made to be less rigid by adding coils, bends or otherwise be lengthened in order to allow them to flex for anticipated movements allowing the wires to move without causing the facade material to deform. On a single panel there may be a variety of flexibility in these frame wires to help different parts of the panel move more or less depending on the façade material and anticipated movements. Variations of the frame wire may connect to different façade materials in ways that compliment those materials, some of which are shown in the drawings. The frame wires may also be able to move freely within the confines of a base extrusion, such as an extruded sill, if one is used.
Guy wires are shaped to attach near the “top” of a clip wire located below and extend upwards to be attached at a plane closer to the building's substrate of the clip wire above the first clip wire. This allows for the tensile strength of the guy wire to support heavier loads when needed, complimenting the load bearing of the wire clips themselves.
It may be apparent that novel and useful Wire Mounting Solutions have been hereinabove described which work and are used in a manner not consistent with conventional products and methods, adding strength to weight ratios and thermal performances never seen before.
It is therefore an object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide lightweight, strong, durable, inexpensive, seismic and hurricane rated clip wire systems with the highest thermal performance possible.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide a guy wire to add significant structural strength to the clip wires with minimal cost in materials and labor, as well as minimal negative impact on thermal performance and other features.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide guy wires that are able to add tension, such as by utilizing opposing threaded ends mating into a nut.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide a clip wire with adjustable horizontal and vertical connections for the sub-girts, with the sub-girts utilizing existing formed wires that hold in position and support the load of all types of insulation without penetrating or even connecting to the building's substrate.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame clips that attach to façade panel materials to help form and assemble them.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide a panel using frame clips that can be mounted fixed to the panel and to the sub-girt or substrate with nothing that slides or moves to accommodate thermal movement or dynamic load movements except for the spring tension in the wires themselves, so that their flexing when these loads are applied allows for the panels to remain un-deformed when these occurrences happen.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide the least possible expensive panel mounting system from the weather barrier to the outside of the panel system.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide formed wires that prevent screws from backing out by use of coils and bent wire ends.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide stitch wires to quickly and easily ensure that formed corners can't open back up easily.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide continuous insulation mounting systems without any materials penetrating or otherwise positioned between the insulation except for the screws.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame wires that may be installed before or after the panel is formed.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to allow for façade materials to be mounted with or without base extrusions over sub-girts or substrates.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to allow façade materials with formed return legs having angles that vary to allow the panels to shed water outside of the panels better, such that a panel's bottom return leg has a sharper angle to allow water to flow off the end without much capillary action, and the panel's upper return having a lesser angle to allow the water to shed onto the face of the panel.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame wires and clip wires which may be formed to provide additional wire surface contact to panel returns, isolators and other locations to spread out loads applied from the wires on those substrates.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame wire shapes having multiple formed holes for fasteners to pass through, allowing for direct attachment to a building's substrate so that no sub-girt is needed to mount a panel to a building substrate.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame wire shapes and clip wire shapes which utilize the rigidity of insulation to help support heavier loads applied to the attached sub-girts or panels which are mounted to the frame wires or clip wires.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame wires which may be shaped and connected together at a panel's corner location by a mechanical means such as stainless steel zip ties, helping one frame wire prevent the additionally attached frame wire from moving when under loads.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to allow for any material to be used to make the parts and components of this invention such as plastic, carbon fiber, fiberglass, fiber reinforced plastics, etc., and which may be made using 3D printers such as Markforged machinery which can make one piece stainless steel parts which may normally take an assembly to accomplish the end product.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide clip wire shapes which prevent fasteners attaching to sub-girts to move while increasing load capacity and minimizing clip wire movement.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide frame wires which utilize the tensile strength of the substantially vertical wires to support the dead loads of the insulation and facades, while the substantially horizontal wires support the dynamic loads imposed on the insulation and façade materials.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is clip wires which have more than one sub-girt mounting hole which acts to prevent rotation of the clip wires when more than one fastener is used to conned the clip wires to the sub-girts.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide geometric shapes which allow for increased structural strength, decrease thermal transfer to or from the building, and/or decrease vibration (noise) transfer to or from the building.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide 3D printing manufacturing allowing for inclusive lock nuts/anti-reversal mechanisms built into one-piece parts.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide some locations of a frame wire or clip wire to be more or less flexible in order to accommodate more or less movement of the attached materials as needed for structural, thermal or acoustic performance.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide an isolator which allows for snap-in clip wires by providing surfaces which allow the clip wire to enter into but not easily escape from. The clip wires will be slightly deformed by pressing down on it, allowing the clip wires to extend outwards to drop into the isolator's anti-reversal slots, then springing back to it's original shape to permanently connect the clip wire to the isolator. The isolator's means of allowing entry but no escape may be channels, one on each end of the isolator, which have inwardly and angularly facing walls which trap the clip wires in place once installed.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide an isolator with channels which allow the top of the clip wires to rest inside of, flush with the surface of the isolator, and where the bottom of the channels are shaped to have as much contact with the clip wires as possible, such as round-bottom channels when used with round clip wires.
Another object of the present Wire Mounting Solutions is to provide insulation and hardware mounting struts which structurally support components such as electrical conduits, conductors, inverters, water pipes and/or other components at or near the location of the panels on a building; supporting conduits and other components up against the insulation or other substrate by partially or wholly encompassing these foreign components alone or in combination with the insulation or substrate.
The invention possesses other objects and/or advantages especially as concerns particular characteristics and features thereof which will become apparent as the specification continues.
For a better understanding of the invention of this application, reference is made to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments thereof which should be referenced to the prior described drawings.
Various aspects of the present application will evolve from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments thereof which should be taken in conjunction with the prior described drawings.
Embodiments of the invention are identified by an upper case letter with an additional upper case letter of the same kind for a variation of the embodiment. Elements of the invention are identified by reference character 10.
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While the foregoing embodiments of the application have been set forth in considerable particularity for the purposes of making a complete disclosure of the invention, it may be apparent to those of skill in the art that numerous changes may be made in detail without departing from the spirit and principles of the application. Additionally, combinations and interchangeability or inter-use of components and embodiments should be considered apparent to the spirit and principles of the application, and in which all terms are meant in their broadest, reasonable sense unless otherwise indicated. Any headings utilized within the description are for convenience only and have no legal or limiting effect.
The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/087,295 filed Oct. 4, 2020.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63087295 | Oct 2020 | US |