Possible configurations for curved sliding doors

What possible configurations are there for curved sliding doors?

What are the limits to the sizes and why?

Lets start with the maximum glass panel size. The curved sliding patio doors usefully use tempered or toughened double glazed units. In the USA these are called IG (insulated glass) units. The glass is usually composed of two sides 6mm (quarter inch) panels with a varying air cavity gap between.

Glasses employed in curved sliding doors have to be very exactly curved to the precise radius; they must not have straight sections at the end of the bend and must have a very good optical quality. To achieve this, the bending and tempering machine must be very good and very precise. It has been found that these types of machines that have been built for curving glasses that are more than 1700mm (5 feet 7 inches) wide do not achieve a precise enough result for these glasses to be used in curved sliding doors. In relation to the height this has also been found to have the best results for 6mm glass (1/4") at a maximum height of 2400mm (7 feet 10 inches)

Therefore the maximum girth, or length measured on the curved is not to exceed 1700mm (5' 7"). And the height is best at 2400mm (7' 10").

Then there is the radius. Now obviously no one needs a curved sliding door that has a very small or tight radius and typically I have never seen one that needed a radius that is smaller than 1000mm (3 feet 3 inches). In reality most curved doors have a relatively large radius. The level of expertise of the company and their bending technology of the aluminium profiles is what will restrict this; same as the glass there are manufacturing limits here too. Being one of the most advance and versatile company in the field of curving aluminium and glass, we can manufacture a minimum radius of 1000mm (3' 3") and though quite uncommon, this requirement does crop up once in a while.

What then are the available configurations one can have with the door system itself?

The basis is that there is a rail that has two tracks, any combination on this two track system will always give you a maximum opening of approximately 50%. Therefore you can have two sliding doors, and any one of these will be open at any one time. Or you can have four sliding doors, meaning any two can be open at any one time. In the same fashion you can have part of the doors fixed to the track and part sliding, so to give an example you could have four sections, two sliding and two fixed and still maintain your maximum 50% opening.

Sometimes you can have very large openings and these "fixed" doors can be made very large with vertical division mullions within. This will give you the appearance of a continuous curved door frame and you can have say a 10m (33 feet) long curved door frame with two central doors that lock into each other and slide with the rest being a large fixed panel made of several glass sections. If you do not use double glazed sections you can consider silicone joins to the glass on the vertical part instead of a vertical profile mullion.

In addition to using a two track system there is a way to add a fixed panel onto the outside of the rail and thus increase the possibility of the opening area to reach approximately 65%. For instance if you made a curved door frame out of six section making two fixed at each end with the central 4 sliding in front of these (two left and two right) you will achieve almost two thirds of the opening open at the maximum.

There today exists a difficulty to curve a three track section, but once this is overcome then using a fixed panel on the outside of that you could achieve almost a 75% opened area of the curved doors.

There is also the possibility of making "pockets" in the walls and in this fashion creating a 100% opening, but this requires more elaborate solutions to the walls.

Curved sliding patio doors are becoming more and more popular and diverse at the requirements for them grow. The demand from the market has made us have to push ourselves further to create the agility required by the clients and their architects.

Use of thermally insulated glass and the use of thermally broken aluminium sections has made these curved doors a "green" product and in line with todays trend to reduce carbon emissions and more responsibility for the environment.