Insulating Strips

Why insulated profiles?

Because aluminium’s good thermal conductivity leads heat out and lets cold in. This can be a problem in, for example, facades, windows and doors designed with uninsulated profiles. Sapa's solution is to connect the internal and the external sections of a profile via plastic insulation strips.

Sapa’s method is glass fibre reinforced polyamide (nylon) strips:

In Sapa's solution, rolling is used to join two aluminium profiles via glass fibre reinforced polyamide strips.
– Insulating strip width is normally between 0.551-1.181 inches (14–30 millimeter). Sapa Extrusions keeps the most common widths in stock (check with Sapa).
– Rolling can be used on lengths from 14.76-24.61 feet (4.5–7.5 meter).
– Degree of insulation depends on strip width and profile design.

Produced in three steps:

The production equipment is purpose-designed. The three steps are:

1. Machining (knurling) of the track to ensure durability.
2. Joining of the aluminium profiles by sliding in the polyamide strips.
3. Rolling – the aluminium channels are closed around the polyamide strips.

During production, random sampling is used to check the strength of the rolling.

Single or double insulation:

Two insulation strips are always recommended where lack of space does not leave single insulation as the only possibility. Strength properties and tolerances are considerably better with two strips.

Insulated profile design:

Besides normal design rules, the following also apply:

• To provide the necessary support during rolling, the sides have to be minimum 0.197 inches (5 millimeter) and perpendicular to the plastic strips.
• Regarding the handling of aluminium profiles in the rolling equipment, Z profiles must be modified so that they do not tilt. The rolling surfaces should be centred and at 90° to the insulation strips. A certain degree of imbalance can be handled by special supports.
• The minimum distance between insulation strips is 0.63 inches (16 millimeter).
• Both insulation strips should normally be of the same width.