Long-standing issues with the building’s external wall stone have caused great worry. It is like a Damocles blade hovering over one’s head. The effects would be terrible if it started.
Figure 1: Roman travertine art gallery using a dry hanging technique, including rear bolt holes. There is no judgment about whether Roman travertine material is safe for exterior wall dry hanging; it has long been debatable. Travertine’s use for exterior wall decoration has not stopped, which causes people great anxiety. Figure 1: Most stone people believe they understand the type of Roman travertine material the Jiangsu Art Museum uses. The author took part in project processing. Not addition from the traditional fiber mesh reinforcement of the back of the stone, like marble, no additional reinforcement was used.
Roman travertine adorns the art gallery and outside wall shown in Figures 2 and 3. In terms of material qualities, Granite is a more perfect and safer external wall stone than Marble and travertine. There are no safety risks or possible hazards as long as the granite material’s surface is free of fractures and it is not susceptible to particular external force impact. Still, nature is an enigmatic universe with unbounded force. Once it starts to be active, its devastating might is beyond human comprehension and opposition. Additionally vulnerable is the brittle granite!
Few people in the stone business and architectural decoration design sector have considered the safety of stone exterior walls, and even less have engaged in how to guarantee their safety.
The pertinent rules prohibiting the use of exterior wall tiles in high-rise buildings date back to roughly 2000, when Jiangsu, Shanghai, Xiamen, Xi’an, and other areas started implementing pertinent laws to limit or forbid their use. These rules have been enhanced and improved in recent years under the focus on house safety, particularly the possible safety concerns of outside wall tiles sliding off. Particularly on December 14, 2021, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development released an announcement on the “Catalogue of Construction Technology, Equipment and Materials Endangering Production Safety in Housing Construction and Municipal Infrastructure Projects (First Batch)”, which unequivocally states that, starting from September 15, 2022, the construction technology of cement mortar paving exterior wall tiles will be totally banned in newly started projects. Should the external wall stone of a building often crumble, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development could potentially proclaim a prohibition on utilizing stone for the structure’s exterior wall. Extensive use of outside wall stone composite panels in the ornamentation of high-rise structures helps to avoid and prevent the fall of exterior wall stone.
Figure 5 displays a Portuguese beige outside wall. Install Portuguese beige (limestone) stone on such a high building without bracing the back of the stone, and you risk great hazard. This building’s outer wall stone’s back is simply reinforced with regular fiber mesh.
German beige aluminum honeycomb composite panels beautify Figure 6. German beige contains many fissures and limestone with great water absorption. Processing German beige raw stone increases the very high risk of stone fracturing and falling should it not be formed into an aluminum honeycomb composite panel. Turning it into an aluminum honeycomb composite panel is like strengthening German beige with this kind of panel.
Exterior wall stone reinforcement comes in what forms?
(1) Fiberglass mesh reinforcement
The fiberglass mesh used to reinforce exterior wall stone is not the fiberglass mesh used by stone processing companies to reinforce marble. The fiberglass mesh used to reinforce marble has large mesh size, light weight, too sparse, and the warp and weft of the fiberglass mesh are too thin. The fiberglass mesh used to reinforce exterior wall stone must meet the requirements of small mesh size, heavy weight, denser warp and weft, and thicker fiberglass mesh.
(2) Steel wire fiberglass composite mesh reinforcement
The steel wire fiberglass mesh is a reinforcement mesh for exterior wall stone composed of steel wire mesh and glass fiber mesh. After the steel wire mesh and glass fiber mesh are combined, its safety performance is greatly improved.
(3) Technical parameter indicators
Impact resistance, aging resistance, peeling resistance, and stone bending strength is increased by 2 to 3 times; after the stone is reinforced with steel wire fiberglass composite mesh, the stone will not fall off after damage or breakage.
(4) Steel bar reinforcement
Steel bars are used to reinforce stones with obvious cracks, especially straight-textured travertine. When reinforcing stone with steel bars, it is necessary to reinforce it in the intersection of cracks and textures.
(5) Aluminum bars and aluminum plates
Rebars will rust, which may contaminate the stone and make the stone surface yellow. Therefore, aluminum bars and aluminum plates are used to reinforce the stone to prevent the stone from yellowing.
(6) Aluminum honeycomb reinforcement, making aluminum honeycomb stone composite panels
Aluminum honeycomb reinforcement of stone is actually processing the stone into aluminum honeycomb composite panels. If the quality of the stone processing company is up to standard, the processed aluminum honeycomb composite panels will not have hollows. After the stone is cracked or damaged, it will always be bonded to the aluminum honeycomb. The safety factor of the stone on the exterior wall is very high and will not fall. However, if the aluminum honeycomb stone composite panel has hollows, it will be dangerous when the stone is cracked or damaged.
(7) Stone reinforcement
Using stone to reinforce the exterior wall stone is actually processing the stone into stone composite panels. By processing it into stone composite panels, the strength and safety of low-strength and cracked stones can be improved.
Only by adopting reasonable reinforcement measures, reinforcement means and reinforcement materials can the safety of the exterior wall stones be ensured and the exterior wall stones be prevented from falling.