Dell/EMC Corporate Office Building & Parking Deck, Hopkinton, MA
Massachusetts
Expansion joints are no less critical to a parking decks performance than data storage is to your business. The unique performance capabilities of EMSEAL’s DSM System have given data-storage company Dell/EMC2 Corporation a much needed upgrade in the expansion joints of their employee parking deck.
EMSEAL’s DSM System provided a rapid-turnaround fix for resealing the joints.
Failed “inflated-thermoset-rubber” expansion joint seals were threatening to shorten the service life of the employee parking deck at Dell/EMC2‘s corporate headquarters in Hopkinton, MA.
When joints fail, leaks are an annoyance and can also result in unsafe ice-patches on affected lower decks. Just as concerning however is the deterioration of the concrete structure as the result of allowing de-icing-salt-laden water to penetrate to rebar causing corrosion and spalling.
It is not unusual to see failure of extruded, joint-face-adhered systems during extension movement. This is because joints in decks are rarely uniform in width along their length, and because adhesives are weakest tension.
Extruded joint systems are sized assuming that joints are uniform in width. They also rely on adhesives in tension to pull the seal open as joints open up at low temperature.
Where joints are wider than the average joint size for which the extruded seal is sized, or where the seal goes into tension at low temperatures after the rubber has suffered compression set at high temperatures, the tension on the adhesive results in bond line failure.
By contrast, the DSM System is manufactured at a dimension more than twice the intended joint opening. It is compressed to less than the joint size and held at this dimension in its packaging. When released from its packaging, the material gradually opens. The rate of opening allows time to apply an epoxy to the foam and to get the material into the joint. Once locked between the substrates, the DSM material continues to expand as it attempts to recover to its full expanded dimension. This means that a backpressure minimizes the tension on the bond line between the foam backing and the substrate while the factory-formed silicone bellows is never in tension.
The DSM System from EMSEAL is supplied in two meter (6.56 LF) lengths. While joining these lengths together is sometimes criticized, it is actually this feature that makes the product uniquely able to address inevitable variations in joint size.
For EMC2, the material was supplied in four different sizes to suit the field-measured joint variations found by the contractor on this job.
In addition to the DSM silicone-coated foam sticks, the “system” is shipped with EMSEAL 820 epoxy, and sausages of silicone for the field-injection of sealant bands and for joining the lengths of material together.
With the substrates prepped with hydro-blasting, the system was ready to be installed according to the sequence illustrated in the inset.
The finished installation addressed deck-to-wall conditions, …
…deck-to-deck conditions subject to normal car traffic, pedestrians, and …
… SUV traffic as well.
The employee parking deck now joins the rest of Dell/EMC2‘s corporate campus in being sealed with an EMSEAL pre-compressed foam technology.
At original construction, the structural joints in the main building utilized all of the unique features of EMSEAL’s Colorseal technology:
- In all the joints the unique ability to color change ensured that the joint seal blended with the changes from brick to precast;
- the thermal insulation value of the Colorseal provides an R-value of nearly 7 in these joints;
- the non-invasive anchoring facilitated an efficient installation while ensuring that brittle masonry and concrete, and sensitive aluminum mullion substrates are not violated with screws;
- and at inside corners, the self-anchoring feature ensured proper securing of the system that would have been impossible because of the inability to access the corner with drills if, for example, a rubber-and-rail strip seal type system had been specified.
EMSEAL DSM System and Colorseal products are free of wax or asphalt compounds. Consequently there are no equals available with their proven combination of high-temperature flexibility and stability, as well as low-temperature flexibility.
Discerning buyers choose Dell/EMC2 data storage and server solutions in order to be confident their choice will meet the demands of their business now and in the future. For these same reasons, architects, engineers, building owners and construction professionals choose and recommend EMSEAL.
