Butzbach - Give new life to your hangar

How to turn an old hangar into an outstanding building with state-of-the-art function and design? No problem with smart solutions and an experienced partner!

Butzbach hangar doors can be perfectly adapted to any design and size of existing hangars, they don‘t add load to the hangar construction and can even be installed during hangar operation.

Here are some examples…

Airfield Chambley-Bussières (France)

Modernization creates versatile and attractive hangars

The refurbishment of old hangars, in both technical and optical respects, requires flexible solutions that can be adapted to the specific situation and allow a further economical use of these buildings. In order to adapt two old NATO hangars at the Chambley airport to the most diverse requirements of the future, the responsibles decided for Butzbach hangar doors, which were individually adapted to the existing buildings.

The client put great emphasis on a translucent door filling in order to minimize the electricity cost for lighting in the hangar. The translucent fibreglass in the colour emerald-green allows natural day-light to penetrate glare-free deep into the hangar. Artificial lighting can almost be dispensed with during the day and yet, the people who are trained as technicians for aircraft engines in one of the hangars, have optimal lighting conditions for their training. The contrast of the door colour with the remaining facade surface in grey contributes to the modern appearance of the hangar.

In order to keep follow-up costs as low as possible and thus ensure economical use, doors with manual operation were selected. Thanks to the lightweight construction made of corrosion-resistant aluminium frame profiles in combination with fibreglass as door filling, even door leaves in large dimensions can be effortlessly operated by hand. Due to this manual operation, a permanent availability of the door systems is guaranteed. The guide rails of the previously installed door system could be preserved, which saved additional work on the foundations.

By means of a lateral extension of the rails on the hangar for the park position of the individual door leaves (which can then be „parked” at the side next to the hangar) almost the entire hall width is available for opening. This offers the greatest possible flexibility in the use of the hangar area.

Used Products: 2 sliding doors, manual operation, 35 m x 5 m and 48 m x 8.5 m. Fibreglass door panels, colour Emerald-Green

Hangar 8, Lyon Bron (France)

Door replacement while in use

The exchange of disused hangar doors during normal functional mode, without affecting the operations of a heavily frequented business airport, was the great organizational challenge that Butzbach had to deal with when replacing a hangar door of the hangar 8 at Lyon Bron Airport. For reasons of price the Airport had opted for folding doors only a few years ago but was already dissatisfied shortly after commissioning. Numerous defects, total failures and the non-compliance with safety standards spoke against the repair of these doors and brought Butzbach into play.

In order not to interfere with the ongoing operation and to be able to reliably close the hangar every evening, the new door system was installed with the aid of a porch roof in front of the existing folding doors still in place. Once a new door leaf was installed, the old door element could be dismantled. Now the door system fulfils all defined requirements to the full satisfaction.

Due to the low weight of the door leaves (consisting of an aluminium frame construction and fibreglass filling) the five individual door leaves of the almost 120 m wide and 9 m high door system can be operated manually. The door leaves can be moved easily on the special rails by one person, thus a constant availability of the system, even in case of power failure, is guaranteed.

State-of-the-art security devices such as integrated pendulum brakes, which act as a speed limiter for manually operated doors, or a storm protection (prevents the door leaves from being lifted out of the guide rails in the event of a gust of wind) ensure optimum protection of the door system and personnel in the hangar.

The fibreglass door filling in the colour Brilliant allows natural daylight to be spread softly and glarefree into the interior of the room, whereby the entire hangar surface can passively be used as an illuminating surface. This creates optimal working conditions in the hangar.

Products used: Sliding door 119 x 9 m with 5 pass doors, fibreglass door panels, colour Brilliant