A barrier made of tensioned, vertical stainless-steel cables offers a bold yet minimalist solution for enclosing an atrium, void, balcony, stair, or other elevated space. A vertical cable safety barrier of this kind offers maximum transparency, space utilisation and protection from falls, which has made it an increasingly popular solution for modern commercial spaces.

The primary concern when putting in vertical cable barriers for the upper levels of any building is safety to avoid falls and other accidents. While the National Construction Code (NCC) provides some guidance on the design of safety barriers through the balustrade “deemed to satisfy” conditions, it does not provide the full picture, leaving the specification of components like cable connections to structural engineers.

The design of tensioned stainless-steel cable barriers is a specialist field, and it requires experience and technical knowledge to understand how the cables themselves should be designed to mate effectively with and transfer the cable loads to the building structure. Without the right experience, specifications may be created that result in tensioned cable barriers that may not meet the required design life of the building and could fail when they see a load event at the design capacity.

Barriers that are designed and installed without full consideration of factors like cable behaviour, the importance of connections, and so on can be problematic. Depending on the application, the consequences can render a barrier noncompliant or create a space that is unsafe for users.A barrier could even be deemed compliant without meeting good design principles, meaning it may not perform as expected over its service life.

In this whitepaper, we discuss the proper design and specification of vertical floor-to-ceiling cable safety barriers, with a special focus on the importance of articulated cable end fittings.

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