Laboratory Vs Field Performance of Innovative Thermal Insulating Plasters

Thermal insulating plasters and renders are becoming a popular solution for the energy retrofit of existing and historic buildings because of their suitability/compatibility with the existing masonry supports. However, as for most of the insulating products, the actual performance of these materials might significantly differ from the one determined with simplified methods (EN ISO 6946 standard) that are commonly adopted by the designers. In this study, an overview of the latest Authors researches that involve three different thermal insulating plasters, containing respectively perlite, vegetal and aerogel aggregates, are presented. The developed plasters were characterized in the laboratory and successively applied in three demonstration buildings. From the in-field thermal monitoring activities, all the analysed thermal insulating plasters showed a decrease in the thermal performance between 25 and 30% if compared to the laboratory measurements

Coupled Heat And Moisture Transfer Simulations On Building Components Retrofitted With A Newly Developed Aerogel-based Coating

The study investigates the effectiveness of an energy retrofit strategy based on the adoption of an aerogel-based coating aimed at mitigating thermal bridges and reducing energy losses. The material was developed and characterised in the framework of the Horizon-2020 project ‘Wall-ACE’. The analyses were aimed to validate coupled heat and moisture transfer simulation models at the component level through the comparison with in-field experiments. Furthermore, the results achieved by the heat and moisture simulations were compared with those obtained by means of standardised simplified methods to verify if the adoption of more accurate calculation procedures gives different results

Diatom communities and ecological status classification in the upper Po River basin

One of the main challenges in river management is the setting of nutrient thresholds that support good ecological status, which is the main objective to achieve for the European member states. This is a complex process, which needs an accurate analysis of the data collected so far for the ecological classification of rivers belonging to different typologies. We analysed the data of the multiannual monitoring concerning diatoms and nutrients in the upper Po River (NW Italy) with the aim of exploring the response of diatom community in terms of species composition, ecological guilds and indices. We considered data of 390 samples, of which 2/3 belonging to the “Central macrotype” (i.e. lowland stretches) and 1/3 to “Alpine siliceous”. We performed a Principal Coordinate Analysis to detect community patterns with respect to water chemical classification and macrotypes highlighting species and ecological guilds characteristic of samples along a water quality gradient. We then performed a partial RDA to focus on the role of environmental and spatial factors in shaping the diatom community in each of the two macrotypes. Finally, we investigated the concordance between the Italian normative indices ICMi (for diatoms) and LIMECO (a chemical index of water quality). We found significant differences in the diatom communities of the two macrotypes and in their response to water quality and to spatial factors. Communities resulted as much more uniform in sites with a low water quality, with characteristic species such as Navicula gregaria, Nitzschia palea and Sellaphora nigri. On the other hands, moderately disturbed sites (in terms of trophic level) were characterised by the highest guild diversity. The RDA confirmed the importance of spatial factors in shaping the diatom assemblages, especially in Alpine streams where the physical barriers may condition species dispersion. The comparison between the two normative indices highlights that the correspondence in the classification is achieved in the 57% (Alpine macrotype) and 43% (Central macrotype) of samples. According to our findings, we suggest the revision of the ICMi, both class boundaries and reference value. In addition, we recommend to lower LIMECO threshold for total phosphorus: indeed, several studies have shown significant changes in the diatom community composition starting from very low values (below the current LIMECO threshold, i.e. 50 µgL-1). Moreover, the extension of our study to the whole Po River basin will complete our knowledge of species not yet included in the diatom indices and of the community response to nutrient levels also in other macrotypes

Energy retrorofit of residential buildings with a novel super-insulating aerogel-based plaster

The interest on superinsulation materials is growing, as particularly suitable in energy retrofit interventions due to the possibility to achieve relevant improvements even when used in low thickness. In this field, a specific EU funded H2020 project, named Wall-ACE, was carried out in the last three years, connecting products manufacturers, researchers and buildings owners, with the common goal of developing and testing a set of new aerogel based insulating products to be used in new and existing buildings. The study here presented reports the results of the research activity developed by the Authors on a novel aerogel based internal plaster. Firstly a set of analysis at material level was carried out to identify the most eff ective mixture able to achieve the target value of thermal conductivity <0.03 W/mK. Then the application on a demonstration building allowed evaluating the actual thermal resistance achievable under real operating conditions. Finally, simulations at building scale were performed to determine the energy-saving potential of this retrofit tecnique

Hygrothermal characterization of high performance Aerogel-based internal plaster

The development of novel high-performance thermal insulating products represents a key-action within the deep energy retrofit strategies on the existing building stock. In the framework of the Horizon 2020 project Wall-ACE, a highly efficient thermal insulating plaster, based on silica aerogels, has been developed. In this paper, the development process aimed at achieving a thermal conductivity lower than 0.030 W/mK is presented. Moreover, the hygrothermal characterization process aimed at assessing the data for the dynamic heat and moisture transfer (HMT) simulations, according to EN 15026:2008, is described