Designing safe-life and fail-safe facade systems

Safety in façade systems realized with stone materials is linked to a multitude of factors, as regards the stone materials, such as: mechanical resistance values, behavior in specific environmental conditions, inner stress related to applied static and dynamic loads; as concerns the implementation process, in order to achieve safety the following specific aspects emerge: the production processes carried out to realize the elements, the quality in projecting anchorage systems and the modes of material placing. In order to define and maintain over time the desired safety levels, it is important activate a process aiming at controlling the above mentioned factors by carefully determining morphologies and dimensional characteristics, techniques of production and realization of coating and anchorage components so that slab shedding is avoided. In the text, the phases and the critical elements of such process are detected in order to define a “safe-life” or “fail-safe” façade system.