Protection against glass breakage and splintering

The city

With over 530,000 inhabitants, Leipzig is the largest city in Saxony and the whole of eastern Germany. It is the center of business, education and trade in eastern Germany. More than 127,000 people commute from one place to another every day. Until the end of 2013, however, regional train services had to bypass Leipzig city center on a large scale. In order to be able to reach the city centre efficiently and conveniently, Deutsche Bahn AG, the Free State of Saxony and the City of Leipzig, among others, have fundamentally reorganized the local transport system and created a direct connection between the southern area and the northern city center.

The current requirement

The glass station at Wilhelm-Leuschner Platz is one of four stations in the Leipzig City Tunnel. It has a length of 140 meters and is located 20 meters below ground level. The character of the station is determined by a wall and ceiling cladding made of approx. 30,000 backlit glass blocks, which create the impression of daylight - a breathtaking visual effect. The glass has to withstand enormous forces. Even if the glass cracks or breaks, it must be ensured that no splinters come loose and injure passers-by or passengers when they fall. The overhead glazing in particular posed an enormous challenge. Additional protection needed to be added.

The solution

By coating the glass blocks with HAVERKAMP splinter protection coating liquid film, HAVERKAMP GmbH was able to offer Ed. Züblin AG, which was responsible for the tunnel extension, a long-term solution for additional protection. A total of around 2,886 m² of glass blocks were coated with the protective coating, which holds the glass together even in the event of breakage and prevents it from falling. HAVERKAMP liquid film is a liquid plastic that is particularly suitable for 3-dimensional surfaces, such as structured glass. It not only gives the glass the properties of laminated security glass, but also offers optimum UV protection

Mr. Baumann, site manager at Ed. Züblin AG in Leipzig, is satisfied with the supplementary solution from HAVERKAMP: "We thought long and hard about how we could create additional safety features that would not affect the glass architecture. In the end, the splinter protection coating from HAVERKAMP convinced us