Polycarbonate Sheet for Building Glazing Panels

Polycarbonate architectural glazing: where it beats glass and where it does not

Polycarbonate is specified in architectural glazing for four reasons — weight, safety, curvature and impact — and ruled out for two — surface hardness and long-term optical flatness. Knowing which side of that line a project sits on is the whole decision. Used where its strengths matter, it outperforms glass; used where its weaknesses show, it disappoints.

Where polycarbonate wins over architectural glass

• Weight: about half the weight of glass, cutting structural load, framing cost and installation risk on large facades and canopies.
• Safety glazing: effectively unbreakable, so it meets safety-glazing needs for overhead, barrier and low-level glazing without laminating.
• Curved glazing: cold-bendable on site to a radius of about 150× thickness, and thermoformable to compound curves that would be expensive in glass.
• Impact and security: survives hail, vandalism and impact that would break glass, which is why it is used in barrel vaults, walkway roofs and vandal-prone facades.

Where glass is still the right choice

Two honest limits: polycarbonate scratches far more easily than glass, so at eye level or in cleaned facades it needs a hard coat and careful maintenance; and it moves with temperature roughly seven times as much as glass, so large panels need generous movement joints and cannot be detailed like rigid glazing. For a flush, hard, dead-flat curtain wall at street level, glass is usually still correct.

Thermal movement is the detailing that makes or breaks it

The single most common architectural failure with polycarbonate is detailing it like glass. At ~0.065 mm/m/°C, a 3 m panel moves ~12 mm across the seasons. Glazing pockets must be deep enough to keep the sheet captive at its shrunk size, fixings must be slotted, and gaskets must accommodate the movement. Get this right and the facade is trouble-free; get it wrong and panels bow, pop out of gaskets, or crack at the fixings.

What to send for an architectural glazing quote

• Application: facade, canopy, barrier, rooflight, curved vault
• Panel sizes and whether curved (radius or profile)
• Exposure — street-level and cleaned, or high and out of reach
• Any building-regulation or fire-class requirement

Tell us the application and exposure. We will say honestly whether polycarbonate is the right glazing, and if so, specify the grade, coating and movement detail to make it last.