Wind has always been a great enemy of outdoor sports, especially racquet sports, since when it blows at high speeds, it becomes almost impossible to continue playing.
As we know, however, compared to tennis, the padel court has a totally different structure, and the fact that it is composed of a sort of big cage makes it much more vulnerable to wind action.
For these reasons, among all the tests and certifications that a padel court must have, one of the most important is the one concerning wind resistance, and more and more manufacturers of padel courts have developed different solutions to be compliant and to make their product adaptable to a wide variety of locations and climatic conditions.
It is worth mentioning that the European standard to refer to is the Eurocodes and more specifically Eurocode 1. The latter represents the reference standard for the minimum strength required for a padel court and is mostly dependent on two factors: the thickness of the structure, and the type of fixing. These two components and especially the degree to which they are set up determine the resistance expressed in km/h of that particular padel court model.
What is the wind resistance of Fiberglass Padel Courts?
Despite their extreme lightness, which, as we explained in one of our last articles, guarantees, great advantages to the installation, NXPadel’s Fiberglass Padel Courts can count on excellent wind resistance thanks to a state-of-the-art fastening system and the use of the best technologies in this field.
All their padel court models, including single courts, panoramic courts, and mobile courts are tested by KIWA, a Global Leader in Testing and Inspection, to withstand winds up to 130km/h according to the Official Eurocodes, just like most padel court manufacturers in the world.
The wind makes the glass vibrate strongly
What causes padel courts to fail due to wind in most cases is not the structure, but the glass. The air mass pushes hard on it and the so-called sail effect is created, which contributes to structural failure. In addition to this, it is not uncommon to see padel courts that, following a strong wind, have the structure completely intact, and the glass shattered to smithereens.
The reason of this is to be found in the fact that with wind, the glass tends to vibrate strongly and continuously, and where the silicone layer has worn away or when the fasteners have loosened, the glass will break.
Why this premise?
As many of you may know, ComfortGlass is an innovative idea of acrylic glass for padel, safe, totally indestructible, and equipped with a state-of-the-art installation system, all advantages that as we are about to see will prove crucial for wind: in the event of an alert for winds above 130 km/h such as tornadoes or hurricanes, it will be possible, thanks to the special installation system, to disassemble and remove all the ComfortGlass panels in just a couple of hours and avoid the sail effect that could cause the structure to collapse.
Secondly, for less sustained winds, strong vibrations of the structure will not be a problem since the special composition of ComfortGlass makes it totally indestructible.
Still afraid of wind destroying your padel courts? Well, now the solution is in front of you! Ready to enter the new era of this industry? NXPadel is waiting for you!
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