USES AND APPLICATIONS
SOLAR CONTROL
Sunlight and Heat
Plexiglas^® sheet is used extensively to allow daylight (direct and diffuse) to enter buildings. It provides an aesthetically pleasing effect, and it reduces energy needs for interior lighting.

Like all light sources, sunlight produces heat. The following information can be used to judge the relative light (visible transmittance) and heating (shading coefficient) benefits.

Types of Plexiglas^® Sheet
Both transparent colors and white translucent Plexiglas^® sheet function well for this purpose.

Transparent colors function by absorbing some sunlight and heat, while allowing the remainder to filter through. These colors offer the advantage of see-through, so that the outdoors can be seen, but light, glare and heat are controlled. White translucent colors scatter and diffuse sunlight, to take maximum advantage of its daylighting characteristics. Most of the sunlight that does not come through is reflected, rather than absorbed.

Visible Light and Solar Energy Transmittance
Plexiglas^® transparent colors are produced in densities varying from light to dark, providing a range of visible light and solar energy transmittance values. This range of values lets the glazing material specifier select the density that most effectively satisfies the interrelated requirements for adequate daylight illumination, control of solar heat gain, and glare within a building.

As the color saturation of each of the transparent Plexiglas^® sheet colors increases, the control of both solar heat and sky glare becomes more effective. For best control of solar heat gain always use the transparent color as the outer pane and the colorless material as the inner pane in multi-pane glazings.

Different densities of each color can be used in combination because the color tones of the various densities in each color are identical. So two densities of neutral gray or bronze will coordinate in sunscreens - window glazing combinations - or in different elevations of a transparent enclosure.

Colored objects viewed in daylight transmitted through the neutral gray series will have a natural appearance because this series transmits light nearly uniformly across the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum. The transparent bronze series of color densities imparts color warmth to colored objects viewed in light transmitted through the material because its transmittance in the red band (from 650 to 700 nanometers) is somewhat higher than that in the cooler color bands.