Dominique Thomasson, president of the Coveris company, specializing in the design and construction of glass facades and architectural glass roofs, has lost count of the back and forth trips his teams had to make between Le Haillan (Gironde) and the Paris region to test the facades. which it had to implement during the construction site of the Maison des Avocats de Paris. This experience which, according to the president, who has also been at the head of the SNFA for several months, tripled the manufacturing time of certain elements, led him to think about the idea of having a local test bench. He then approached Nobatek, an institute for the energy and environmental transition of buildings, which chose to support him in his approach. The couple quickly found an attentive ear from the CSTB, which saw a possibility of asserting its presence in the territories.
For a year now, the Gironde company has housed an AEV test bench. This modular tool, calibrated to accommodate models up to 5Mx5M, required an investment of around 200,000 euros, largely financed by Europe and the regional council of Nouvelle Aquitaine. “ This partnership prototyping platform is made up of an air, water and wind test bench, coupled with an engineering offer and research and development support from Nobatek. The qualifying tests will be supervised and analyzed by the CSTB which will send its technicians to guarantee and certify the innovations,” summarized the partners of this project. Thanks to “building a customer journey ». This platform is open to manufacturers who can come and test all types of facades: glass, light, opaque, etc. and this from the R&D phase.
At a time of eco-construction and the possible arrival of demountable facades, this type of tool is likely to become essential, particularly for testing the watertightness of replacement elements and thus making it easier to obtain the ten-year warranty.
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