1973-1977
A Pioneer in the UK
by David Muirie, formerly co-owner of Booth-Muirie Ltd., Glasgow, Scotland
P.32
It was as early as 1973 that I first learned of ‘a product that continuously bonded aluminium sheets and a plastic core together to make a very flat panel’.
…
Booth-Muirie have since used tens of thousand square meters of ALUCOBOND® on a very large number of prestigious buildings such as the Wimbledon Centre Court, Channel Tunnel Rail Link, B Sky B, Dublin Airport, just to mention a few.I am not aware of any product failures over the past more than 35 years, which contributes to the fact that we have enjoyed working with ALUCOBOND® over such a long period of time and I am certain this will continue for many years to come.
page=33
1978 - 1979
ALUCOBOND® SB1 / 21 Projects
p.36
The changes in fire regulations, above all in Germany, increasingly demanded the implementation of flame retardant products for specific architectural applications. The ALUCOBOND® development team was excellently prepared for this. The first tests with PVC as a core material for improving the fire behaviour properties already began in April 1969. The know-how available at that time served as the basis for the subsequent research and development work that finally led to launching ALUCOBOND® SB1 (flame retardent as defined by DIN 4102) on the market in Europe at the end of the year. In USA, this type was produced and sold later as ALUCOBOND® 21.
1989
A ‘stony’ but successful way in Portugal
p.91
Parts of Europe and Southeast Asia increasingly noticed the growing demands on their markets with regard to the products’ fire classification which presented new challenges. Subsequently, the development of a non-combustible panel, namely A2, and the respective production technology it required began that year targeting at implementation within 2 – 3 years.
Interview with Mr. Dominique Zolver, Director of Tim Composites , Cholet, France
p.97
Q: What are the tendencies as regards approvals and standards?
…
As regards the fire qualification, the new European regulation will come into effect in France. In this respect, we are well set up with the products ALUCOBOND® plus and ALUCOBOND® A2 and will also be playing a leading role in the future.Q: Will ALUCOBOND® PE gradually be replaced by A2?
This is not certain. I do not see why ALUCOBOND® PE should suddenly be considered unsuitable for façades, just like that. We do not know the new European utilization standards in detail yet, but we shall gear ourselves to them in good time.
1992
Changing from Old to New – ALUCOBOND®, the perfect material for retrofitting buildings
p.106 - 108
The German re-unification was in fact almost a part of history by this time, but the need for renovating the buildings in the former GDR had now become really apparent. It was tremendous. Particularly in need of urgent renovation were the old, precast, concrete slab buildings, which as a rule were blocks of flats that had found new owners in a great many cases. Numerous cladding contracting companies from West Germany set up subsidiaries in the East and contended for the many façade renovation projects. The market introduction of non-combustible ALUCOBOND® A2 in 1992 therefore came just at the right time. The new production line set up for it, i.e. a continuous double-belt press line that had been developed specially for this project, was put into operation beginning of the year. The ‘general approval by the building authorities’ was also granted punctually. ALUCOBOND® A2 adorns hundreds of buildings in Germany today, both in the East and West, with colourful and sometimes spectacular, rear-ventilated claddings
that also caused a stir internationally and were ‘decorated’ with diverse awards.As a consequence, ALUCOBOND® A2 also enabled our access to specific projects in Switzerland and Austria, as well as in some of the Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia which, due to special fire regulation requirements, could otherwise not have been realized with aluminium composite panels. More recently the product has also been introduced to an increasing extent on East European markets for façade cladding.