With the refurbishment and expansion of Salzburg main railway station, which first opened back in 1860, the Austrian Federal Railway is continuing to expand the trans-European rail network. The new design complemented the three historic steel roofs renovated in 2009 with two around 300 metre long roof constructions made from pneumatically-supported foil cushions.
Ceno Membrane Technology GmbH, one of the leading companies in the field of textiles architecture for more than 30 years now, processed the Nowoflon ET 6235Z foils made from the 3M Dyneon ETFE polymer into a highly transparent construction. The two membrane roofs span an area covering around 6,000 square metres and comprise a total of 161 triple layered, compressed air supported foil cushion elements. The Nowoflon ET 6235Z foils, extruded by Siegsdorf based Nowofol Kunststoffprodukte GmbH & Co. KG, are just 250 to 300 micrometres thick and highly transparent. The area weight is around just one twentieth of that of glass. This allows for extremely filigree constructions, opening up new degrees of freedom in architectural form. The foils feature a low energy surface, meaning a normal rain shower is generally sufficient to wash off any dirt. This reduces the maintenance costs. The Dyneon ETFE material shows virtually universal chemical resistance and meets the B1 fire class criteria (according to DIN 4102).
The roof construction is made from pneumatically-supported foil cushions (photo: 3M)
