Llumar® specified at London Transport Museum after spontaneous glass breakage

When a glass panel on the mezzanine floor of the London Transport Museum in the heart of London’s Covent Garden shattered last year, in a suspected case of spontaneous glass fracture, Alan Brooker, Head of Security & Operations took immediate steps to safeguard staff and visitors at the popular tourist attraction – by calling in CPFilms accredited installer Solarshield to install its Llumar® performance safety film.

The mezzanine panels in the museum are vertical and so required an edge retention system in addition to film. Solarshield installed a proprietary silicone glazing bead which holds the film to the frame member, whilst the Llumar® safety film holds the shattered pieces of glass together in the event of failure. Optically-clear Llumar® 175 micron-thick SCL SR PS7 film was chosen.

Solarshield were contacted again by the museum earlier this month, after the failure of another panel on the mezzanine floor. However, this time, because safety film was in place, the panel was safely and securely removed without causing damage or injury. Rob Lansdown, Head of Systems and Infrastructure at the museum explains: “When another curved pane of glass went this month with what has all the signs of a nickel sulphide inclusion failure, the Solarshield system worked exactly to the letter as they described it. The shattered sheet remained largely intact and the sheet was retained securely by both the film and silicon beading. To facilitate removal, we simply stuck sticky-back polyboard on both sides for extra stiffness and cut the silicon away with a knife. The sheet was still quite securely retained to the point that I had to knock the pane out of the handrail with the claw of a hammer to get it out, intact and in one whole piece.

Very impressive, it did exactly what it said on the label!”

Solarshield have now been asked to quote for the replacement film on this sheet and to apply film to the curtain wall of the museum’s new Learning Centre.