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Impact products became popular after hurricane Andrew because people reviewing the damage and its causes discovered some of the reasons for the destruction of buildings. In short they discovered two basic keys to a buildings survival.
1. Prevent the wind from getting into the building.
2. Keep the roof on the building.
Obviously the key to keeping the wind out lies in the windows and doors.
Hurricane force wind create tremendous pressures (wind loads) on a building measured in pounds per square foot. This pressure is both positive and negative since the wind will reverse direction as the storm passes over. For example: 140 mph wind generating 80 psf of wind load on a4 ft
By 8 ft window translates to a total load of 2,560 pounds of pressure on the window and while this is going on along comes your neighbors trash can going 50 mph and hitting the window. Up until this point your window had a fair chance of remaining intact. Once the windows or doors fail these same pressures are allowed to build up inside the structure causing tremendous lift pressure on the roof and causing it to fail next.
To prevent this, products like hurricane shutters or impact resistant windows started becoming mandatory in many hurricane prone areas.
Impact resistant glass has been greatly refined over the past 4 years into a much improved product that has many additional advantages over the early products. The new laminated products offer enhanced sound reduction, UV protection, burglar resistance and a true glass surface on both sides. This product passes the Dade County tests for impact resistance.
Laminated glass also offers the advantage of passive protection since your protection is always in place.
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