The stone materials are by definition antique and associated to building systems deep-rooted in the tradition: the marbles, the stones, the granites and the travertines, in fact have an undoubted fascination linked to their naturalness and to the monumentality and the richness of the works of the past, combined to the characteristics of resistance, durability and low maintenance, put in evidence in centuries of utilization.
Significant is the application of these materials in the façade’s systems, or better in the envelopes: their technological evolution imposed as standard or however as state of art in the research and of experimentation, the realization of ventilated claddings.
These systems in fact guarantee, for buildings with dimensional characteristics suitable for their correct work, a clean upgrade of the thermal insulation especially in the summer, thanks to the air space put between the structure and the cladding; a wide utilization is also in the recover of old buildings’ façades for the renewing without dismantle the pre-existences.
Slabs of stone materials cut with a traditional thickness (up to 75 millimetres and over) have been used for years, whereas lately the utilization of thin slabs (up to 5 millimetres) reinforced with epoxy resins, glass and carbon fibres, alucobond and honeycomb panels.
This innovative and for certain aspects still experimental solution allows to contain the slabs’ weight (up to 15 kilograms for square meter for granite’s slabs reinforced with carbon fibres, for a total thickness of 7 millimetres), without compromise the solidity and the resistance of the cladding surface. Essential are the analysis of the characteristics of the material, the chose of the mechanical fixing’s and secondary structure’s type, beside the phase of the installation of the integrated system, that can nullify the efficacy of the final result, if not made in the correct way.
