Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
Self-extinguishing LED display system with Duraflon® coating
The Philharmonic Hall in Hamburg has been a landmark of the city since November 2016. The 110-metre high building on the right bank of the Norderelbe has a modern structure with a glass façade and impresses with its unique architecture. We are proud that we were able to contribute something to this impressive cultural landmark with our display solutions.
Challenge
The entrance facade of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Germany, shall be equipped with an LED SMD video display to play various contents as lighting effects, text, logos, advertising up to videos. In the outdoor area the LED display will face a high air humidity and a wide range of temperatures. Moreover, the architects Herzog & de Meuron and the HOCHTIEF AG placed very special demands on the desired LED wall. At once, the entire wall surface excluding the recesses for passages and the ticket counter shall be covered with LEDs. Furthermore, the surface of the pixel cards needs to be Duraflon® coated aluminum masks. The Duraflon® coating is a key design element that you can find at many different building components of the Elbphilharmonie. What is more, there are certain fire protection measures for the LED display.
Solution
The pixel cards of the 66.15 m² S[quadrat] SO[10 SMD] NT V4 LED video display are perfect for these requirements. In order to achieve this, S[quadrat] GmbH developed three different pixel card sizes from a size of 16 cm wide x 16 cm high upwards. We used a specially designed precision frame to hold the display system and all its electronic components. As a substructure we built a precision frame from Syskomp strut profiles. This precision frame is so stiff that it only needs to be fixed at the top and at the bottom with steel angles onto the existing construction. We screwed 3 mm thick sheet metal plates onto the precision frame. Then we mounted the magnetic pixel cards onto these plates. We fixed the power supplies and controlling components inside the precision frame directly at the strut profiles. Thus, the total depth of the complete LED display system is only 160 mm.
Instead of standard masks we manufactured Duraflon® coated aluminum masks for each pixel card of the LED display system. These masks were sampled and approved by the architects.
Complying with the facility’s fire prevention regulations the pixel cards have the classification „V1“, according to DIN EN 60950. This means, in case of an inflammation the fire spread is restricted to a small area will extinguish itself within less than 250 seconds. Additionally, the LED display is supplied with a temperature monitoring system, self-developed by us, to permanently monitor the various sectors and compare them with the predefined limit values. The maximum measured temperature and its sector will be permanently shown in the display of the evaluation device. If the temperature increases up to the defined automatic switch-off limit, the power supply of the concerned sector respectively the complete LED display system will be switched off immediately.
