Vitro Architectural Glass introduced its jumbo coater at an open house attended by Vitro executives, customers and employees, and government officials from Wichita Falls and the state of Texas.
Bill Haley, Wichita Falls plant manager, said: “The trend in buildings today is large, expansive glass – with some panels over 12 feet tall – that is also energy efficient.
“Vitro can now meet architects’ growing demand for low-e glass in sizes as large as 130 x 204 inches.
“The coater further enhances our ability to cost-efficiently produce a variety of high-performance architectural glasses that comply with more stringent building codes and meet the industry’s increasingly complex design challenges.”
The Mexican glass producer has started to produce energy-efficient glass in sizes 112.5% larger than standard size lites in the magnetron sputtered vacuum deposition (MSVD) glass coater.
Richard A. Beuke, President at Vitro Architectural Glass, said: “Vitro Glass was the first glass manufacturer to produce a triple-silver-coated product (Solarban 70XL glass) and the first to develop the quad-silver coating technology now featured in our Solarban 90glass.
“The ground-breaking manufacturing advance will allow us to more quickly introduce new development platforms for solar control low-e coatings and accelerate our ability to bring new products to market.”
The unit was constructed in 14 months and will enable Vitro Glass to produce high performing and low-emissivity (low-e) glasses. The plant’s location will provide the southern United States – the region with the highest demand for low-e glass – with convenient access to a full range of glass sizes.
The coater is 22% wider and 50% longer than the plant’s other MSVD coater, which produces standard size (96 x 130 inches) glass. The jumbo MSVD coater applies Solarban solar control low-e coatings on a variety of large-area glass substrates in standard thicknesses while providing precision colour control and aesthetics. It will produce more glass-per-energy unit than most MSVD coaters currently in operation, while increasing the plant’s annual low-e glass production by 20%.
Pictured: Jumbo Coater Open House
