Fabio Favoino

Review of current status, requirements and opportunities for building performance simulation of adaptive facades†

Adaptive building envelope systems have the potential of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the energy flexibility of buildings, while maintaining high levels of indoor environmental quality. The development of such innovative materials and technologies, as well as their real-world implementation, can be enhanced with the use of building performance simulation (BPS). Performance prediction of adaptive facades can, however, be a challenging task and the information on this topic is scarce and fragmented. The main contribution of this review article is to bring together and analyse the existing information in this field. In the first part, the unique requirements for successful modelling and simulation of adaptive facades are discussed. In the second part, the capabilities of five widely used BPS tools are reviewed, in terms of their ability to model energy and occupant comfort performance of adaptive facades. Finally, it discusses various ongoing trends and research needs in this field.

Vacuum Insulation Panels: Analysis of the Thermal Performance of Both Single Panel and Multilayer Boards

The requirements for improvement in the energy efficiency of buildings, mandatory in many EU countries, entail a high level of thermal insulation of the building envelope. In recent years, super-insulation materials with very low thermal conductivity have been developed. These materials provide satisfactory thermal insulation, but allow the total thickness of the envelope components to be kept below a certain thickness. Nevertheless, in order to penetrate the building construction market, some barriers have to be overcome. One of the main issues is that testing procedures and useful data that are able to give a reliable picture of their performance when applied to real buildings have to be provided. Vacuum Insulation Panels (VIPs) are one of the most promising high performing technologies. The overall, effective, performance of a panel under actual working conditions is influenced by thermal bridging, due to the edge of the panel envelope and to the type of joint. In this paper, a study on the critical issues related to the laboratory measurement of the equivalent thermal conductivity of VIPs and their performance degradation due to vacuum loss has been carried out utilizing guarded heat flux meter apparatus. A numerical analysis has also been developed to study thermal bridging effect when VIP panels are adopted to create multilayer boards for building applications.

Temperature Field Real-Time Diagnosis by Means of Infrared Imaging in Data Elaboration Center

Data Elaboration Centers are characterized by high specific energy consumptions, due to the requirements for the working environment of IT machines and their large working loads. This is due to the fact that the control of the indoor air parameters is of paramount importance in order to maintain the servers in safe working conditions. Reliable diagnostic procedures are therefore needed. The work herewith presented proposes an innovative diagnostic method, which makes use of infrared thermal imaging for real-time monitoring of the air temperature field in the proximity to the server air inlet. The method is validated by means of an experimental assessment, with the aim to assess the capability of an industrial infrared camera to evaluate the air temperature field next to the inlet surface of the server racks, in real working conditions. Potential and limitations of this procedure are presented and discussed.

Simulation-Based Evaluation of Adaptive Materials for Improved Building Performance

This chapter presents a method to evaluate the performance and to support product development of adaptive micro- and nanobased material and technologies, integrated into buildings. In the first section, an introduction to adaptive building concepts is provided, followed by an overview of adaptive micro- and nanomaterials for building envelope integration in the second part. The role of building simulation in the development of innovative adaptive materials and technologies is discussed in the third section, together with the limitations and challenges of predicting by means of computation the performance of adaptive materials. The most advanced methodologies and the characteristics of the tools to support product development for building-integrated adaptive materials and technologies are presented in the fourth section. Finally, a case study is described to demonstrate and illustrate some of the potential of those methodologies, consisting in the evaluation of the performance of future generation adaptive glazing.

Building Envelope Test CELL: development of an indoor test cell for advanced façade systems thermal performance assessment

This paper describes the development of a new facility for testing building envelope systems called Building Envelope Test cell (BETcell), implemented at Politecnico di Torino. The test facility is aimed at characterizing the thermal performance of building envelope components and systems in realistic boundary conditions (real world climatic conditions), but yet controllable. This becomes particularly important when the thermal performance of the building envelope system depends on the boundary conditions (i.e. responsive building envelope elements and multifunctional facades) and when the characterization of the whole facade system is required, in order to reduce the resources needed for outdoor testing. The integration with an outdoor test facility and a guarded hot plate enable a complete thermal characterization of building envelope systems, components and/or materials. The aim of the BETcell is to provide the building industry with an instrument that will enhance the development of innovative and low-energy building envelopesAdvanced facade integrating ventilation, such as dynamic insulated and naturally or mechanically ventilated facade are currently under investigation and new solutions are being made available in the market. This paper presents the results of an extensive experimental campaign on a ventilated opaque double skin facade based on hollow clay bricks. Summer and winter thermal performance has been investigated on three different facade configurations both through an in-field monitoring campaign and through a series of laboratory tests in a double climatic chamber apparatus. For both tests, temperatures and heat fluxes were continuously monitored. Results are encouraging and underline the great potential of this technology, which can lead to a noticeable energy demand reduction along the whole year