The Sphere entertainment venue designed by Populous uses Sika Emseal building expansion joints

Fire-rated, wall & floor expansion joints & covers

The Sphere Las Vegas NV

Commercial Building Expansion Joints

Commercial building expansion joints from market leaders Emseal and Watson Bowman Acme are now brought together under Sika USA ownership. The waterproof, fire rated, trafficable, sound attenuating, insulating, air, wind, seismic, and watertight, building expansion joints and precompressed hybrid sealants from Emseal, as well as the interior floor and wall expansion joint covers and parking and open-air and stadium expansion joint under the Wabo® brand are available from a single source from Sika Emseal. Watson Bowman Acme services the combined offering of its industry-defining transportation, tunnel and bridge expansion joints as well as the BEJS and Emcrete nosing systems of Emseal.

Using Revit BIM, CAD and a collaborative 3-D expansion joint design methodology taught in AIA-registered seminars, it is now possible for designers and contractors to wrap the entire building envelope, as well as ensure that life-safety is addressed, by specifying and installing expansion joint systems that transition into one another and are warranted for continuity of seal between like or dissimilar technologies as well as at the tie-ins to adjacent waterproofing and roofing membranes.

Commercial Building Expansion Joints

Commercial building expansion joints from market leaders Emseal and Watson Bowman Acme are now brought together under Sika USA ownership. The waterproof, fire rated, trafficable, sound attenuating, insulating, air, wind, seismic, and watertight, building expansion joints and precompressed hybrid sealants from Emseal, as well as the interior floor and wall expansion joint covers and parking and open-air and stadium expansion joint under the Wabo® brand are available from a single source from Sika Emseal. Watson Bowman Acme services the combined offering of its industry-defining transportation, tunnel and bridge expansion joints as well as the BEJS and Emcrete nosing systems of Emseal.

Using Revit BIM, CAD and a collaborative 3-D expansion joint design methodology taught in AIA-registered seminars, it is now possible for designers and contractors to wrap the entire building envelope, as well as ensure that life-safety is addressed, by specifying and installing expansion joint systems that transition into one another and are warranted for continuity of seal between like or dissimilar technologies as well as at the tie-ins to adjacent waterproofing and roofing membranes.

Expansion Joints in the Building Envelope - EMSEAL Seals the Gaps

Sika Emseal supplies expansion joints and sealants specifically manufactured to seal the gaps in the building envelope. They offer watertight, thermal insulating, acoustic and fire-rated solutions from the bottom to the top of any architectural design. These are high-quality, innovative and durable products for use in sealing and bridging small and large building component and structural joints in foundations, decks, walls, windows, floors, roofs as well as roadways and bridges. Emseal sealant products are designed to maintain continuity of seal which is often compromised by other technologies unable to handle changes in plane, direction, or where dissimilar joint materials meet. This interactive illustration shows some of our many watertight and fire-rated solutions for conditions which occur in new or retrofit work in commercial and office buildings, parking structures, plaza decks, below grade foundationsstadiums and other construction.

Interior Expansion Joint Solutions Video Thumbnail by Sika Emseal

Designing Interior Expansion Joints for Aesthetics & Functionality requires an understanding of building science and properties of the adjacent components that expansion joints bisect. Sika Emseal offers a complete line of interior expansion joint solutions that aesthetically blend into the interior design and are functional systems providing fire resistance, sound attenuation, thermal & moisture protection, and traffic durability creating a comfortable built lived-in environment.

 

Expansion Joints and Sealants are Critical to Building Enclosure Performance

Expansion joints in concrete, steel, masonry, timber and other structures are a critical element in overall building enclosure performance. Expansion or movement joints bisect the entire structure. This means that structural as well as building enclosure materials specified to waterproof, roof, clad, and cover the structure are divided by the intersecting opening that is the expansion joint. Consequently, expansion joint openings must be filled, sealed, and/or covered with materials that restore the function of the materials bisected.

Sika Emseal has used as the inspiration for invention of its building expansion joint product line, the performance requirements of the adjacent building envelope materials. This means that in walls, our precompressed foam sealants were developed to perform to, or exceed, the performance test requirements of curtainwall systems. For roofs, our materials incorporate redundancy across the joint gap, at the roof membrane integration, and even in the anchoring method—by ensuring the roof expansion joint is both welded or adhered and mechanically fastened. For seismic expansion joints, our system innovation was built on principles that ensure watertightness at the deck surface, non-invasive anchoring to the joint substrate, and non-invasive anchoring of the expansion joint covers. In parking garage and stadium expansion joint applications, our systems ensure watertightness throughout curb to sidewalk or tread-and-riser steps as well as in transition to concourses and walls–while ensuring a complete offering to handle a wide variety of traffic (cars, carts, people). When it comes to filling joint openings where acoustic requirements are expected, our solution incorporates mass-loading, absorptive and reflective attributes. And our all-in-one water, acoustic, and fire-rated expansion joints were invented and proved to perform to the strictest fire resistance test methods for fire barriers—UL, ASTM, CE, EN, AS, BS, RWS.

Watertightness at the deck surface while ensuring continuity of seal at curbs and parapets is the critical differentiator in our bridge expansion joint. Protecting the piers and beams of the underlying structure is essential to bridge preservation.

Our sealant tapes are more robust than your average weather stripping–incorporating hydrophobic chemistry into a foam matrix that ensures durability and sealing while resisting compression set in a way not possible with traditional closed-cell gaskets.

Perhaps most critically, expansion joints will leak if they are not properly transitioned—between similar and dissimilar expansion joint systems at changes in plane and direction—as well as at the tie-ins to waterproofing and roofing membranes and at wall air-barriers and coatings. As a member of the Sika global family, Sika Emseal is now able to offer complete building enclosure and roof solutions that feature single-source expansion joint warranties between its roof expansion joint (RoofJoint) and best-in-class roof membrane (Sika Sarnafil), monolithic membranes (Hydrotech MM6125) and Sika liquid applied membranes (Sika LAM).

Purpose-designed products are essential in ensuring the durable treatment of expansion joints while ensuring continuity of seal between systems and adjacent materials. No less important is the team that delivers this wholistic approach to lasting expansion joint and joint sealing. Our in-field and in-office technical sales team is dedicated to ensuring your project’s success. We use the latest in interactive communication tools and technologies to collaborate with you in selecting products and producing construction documents that help achieve the goal of the delivery of a high-performance building enclosure. These include expansion joint details in BIM, CAD, and Inventor, as well as guide specs, product data sheets, installation data sheets, safety data sheets and so much more available at your fingertips at this website. We look forward to helping you achieve the lowest-total-cost-of-ownership, trouble-free expansion joints for your project. Contact us today.