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Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance – Report from the Emerging Technology and Innovation Committee

Let’s take a look at some of the great work our Emerging Technology and Innovation Committee has been doing.

The committee is chaired by Helen Sanders of Technoform Glass Insulation.

The Advanced Testing Fenestration task group, chaired by Aaron Ryan of Pella, has reviewed data results from two test methodologies (the Intertek Variable Environment Chamber and the modified ASTM E 2190 test developed by H.B. Fuller) with a view to choosing a recommended method for accelerated testing of IGU durability. It has been agreed that more data is required before making a decision of which direction to pursue.  

John Kent of the Insulating Glass Certification Council has reported on the preliminary results from the data collected under the Insulating Glass Certification Council’s Provisional Certification Pilot Program.  The two groups have now met and reviewed the data from the pilot IGCC program.  The group has agreed to move forward with a modification of the variable environmental cycling chamber.  This has the potential to dramatically reduce the amount of time in testing and promote faster development of new technologies.

The Vacuum Insulating Glass task group, chaired by David Cooper of Guardian Industries, is monitoring the development of the ISO standard for VIG.  Dave actively participated in developing the draft of the Part 1 durability standard and has continued work on the next phase, which covers temperature-induced effects. The ISO standard is currently out for ballot to the various countries that have representation on the committee. The remaining task group objectives have been deferred pending publication of the ISO standard. Once the ISO standard has been published, the task group will develop certification program procedures to qualify VIG units for code compliance, including Energy Star.

Dave is also chair of the National Fenestration Rating Council VIG task group, which is validating the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory window and thermal simulation programs against various VIG window constructions. Testing will be commencing soon.

The Gas Measurement and Validation task group, chaired by Randi Ernst of FDR Design, has reported on the current activities at ASTM. As reported in December 2016, there have been some issues with the spark emission spectrometer that may be related to the desiccant (nitrogen-to-oxygen ratios). It was agreed to reconvene the Desiccant task group to develop a standard specification for testing desiccant.

The first draft of a standard to assess Thermal Stress for insulating glass units was reviewed by the ASTM E 1300 task group at their Seattle, Wash., task group meeting.  The research to develop this standard was funded by IGMA under the Emerging Technology and Innovation Committee. Consideration is being given to develop a software program to run the simulations. This program will be the property of IGMA and will be available to IGMA members at no charge. There will be discussion of offering this program at no charge to the industry at large.

That’s just one of the four committees our active and engaged members are running. We encourage all members to attend our conferences to find out more about their important work.The 2017 Summer Conference is happening as this goes to print, July 31 to Aug. 2 at the Sheraton Centre Montreal. After that is the 2018 Winter Conference, Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 at the Loews Ventana Canyon in Tucson, Ariz.