Meeting simultaneous design criteria in one product can be a challenge. However, a new glazing solution from Viracon, the country’s leading single-source glass fabricator, is offering designers, architects and developers an unprecedented “package” of benefits. The new Viracon VUE-50 insulating glass provides the perfect balance of light, comfort, solar performance and sustainability.
“We asked designers what they wanted in high-performance glass, and we listened,” says Rick Voelker, vice president technical services at Viracon. “That’s how Viracon VUE-50 was developed. We focused on a coating that would provide the right amount of visible light transmittance by providing natural daylight and reducing potential glare.
Viracon’s VUE-50 offers a visible light transmittance (VLT) of 49% on clear glass and more than 50% on low-iron substrates. It also provides low interior and exterior reflectance and low U-V light transmittance.
A real benefit of Viracon VUE-50 is the coating’s solar performance. With a solar heat gain coefficient of .26 and a light to solar gain ratio of 1.88, VUE-50 is a clear improvement over the dark-tinted low-E coatings of the 1980s and early 1990s. VUE-50 exceeds the standard for sustainable design based on ASHREA 90.1 requirements.
“From an aesthetic perspective, Viracon VUE-50 not only has a subtle blue-gray hue, it also offers a pleasing flat appearance,” says Voelker. “The coating is applied after heat treating, which augments flatness compared to high performance coatings that are heat treated after the coating application.”
The VUE-50 coating can be specified on your preferred glass substrate and applied to the same surface as silk-screen patterns for added solar performance or enhanced aesthetics.