Editorial to the proceedings of the 6th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2015)

The 6th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2015) - the official conference of the International Association of Building Physics (IABP) – took place in the city of Torino, hosted by Politecnico di Torino and co-organized by ATI Piemonte and the Department of Energy - Politecnico di Torino. IBPC 2015 was focused on the theme “Building Physics for a Sustainable Built Environment”

6th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2015

The 6th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2015) - the official conference of the International Association of Building Physics (IABP) – took place in the city of Torino, hosted by Politecnico di Torino and co-organized by ATI Piemonte and the Department of Energy - Politecnico di Torino. IBPC 2015 was focused on the theme “Building Physics for a Sustainable Built Environment”

Switching from static to adaptable and dynamic building envelopes: A paradigm shift for the energy efficiency in buildings

The key role of the building envelope in attaining building energy efficiency and satisfactory indoor comfort has long been established. Nevertheless, until recent times, all efforts and attention have mainly been focused on increasing and optimizing the thermal insulation of the envelope components. This strategy was a winning approach for a long time, but its limitations became obvious when users and designers started to consider the overall energy demand of a building and started to aim for Zero Energy Building (ZEB) or nearly ZEB goals. New and more revolutionary concepts and technologies needed to be developed to satisfy such challenging requirements. The potential benefits of this technological development are relevant since the building envelope plays a key role in controlling the energy and mass flows from outdoors to indoors (and vice versa) and, moreover, the facades offer a significant opportunity for solar energy exploitation. Several researches have demonstrated that the limitation of the existing facades could be overcome only by switching from ‘static’ to ‘responsive’ and ‘dynamic’ systems, such as Multifunctional Facade Modules (MFMs) and Responsive Building Elements (RBE). These components are able to continuously and pro-actively react to outdoor and indoor environment conditions and facilitate and enhance the exploitation of renewable and low exergy sources. In order to reduce the energy demand, to maximize the indoor comfort conditions and to produce energy at the site, these almost ‘self-sufficient’, or even ‘positive energy’ building skins frequently incorporate different technologies and are functionally connected to other building services and installations. An overview of the technological evolution of the building envelope that has taken place, ranging from traditional components to the innovative skins, will be given in this paper, while focusing on the different approaches that have characterized this development. Examples of innovative solutions for responsive and dynamic components and the future trends of development will also be described

6th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2015

The 6th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2015) - the official conference of the International Association of Building Physics (IABP) – took place in the city of Torino, hosted by Politecnico di Torino and co-organized by ATI Piemonte and the Department of Energy - Politecnico di Torino. IBPC 2015 was focused on the theme “Building Physics for a Sustainable Built Environment”

Energy demand profiles assessment at district scale: A stochastic approach for a block of buildings demand profiles generation

A methodology, based on the concept of reference building models, was developed and applied in order to provide reliable demand profiles for a block of buildings. A block of buildings in Turin was taken as a case study. An engineering bottom-up approach was developed. A reference building was chosen and calibrated with metered data. Various simulation scenarios were developed and a parametric analysis was carried out. Seasonal heating profiles were generated for the reference building. The parametric analysis indicated the small dispersion of the heating profiles for the various scenarios. A database containing the building's heating profiles was created

Dynamic Insulation Systems: Experimental Analysis on a Parietodynamic Wall

This paper shows the results of an extensive experimental campaign on a ventilated opaque double skin façade based on hollow clay bricks. The winter thermal performances of the dynamic insulated systems were investigated on two different full scale façade configurations through an experimental campaign in double climatic chamber and guarded heat flow meter apparatus. The laboratory tests on dynamic insulated façade (DIF) in both exhaust and supply configurations show respectively an effective reduction of heat losses and the capability of pre-heat the supply air passing across the ventilated external channel. The results confirm the extra insulation offered by the ventilated gap, which allows for a reduction of the wall insulation thickness, providing heat loss reduction and high level of indoor air quality in thin wall constructio

Design of a low-temperature solar heating system based on a slurry Phase Change Material (PCS)

Flat-plate solar thermal collectors are the most common devices used for the conversion of solar energy into heat. Water-based fluids are frequently adopted as heat carriers for this technology, although their efficiency is limited by certain thermodynamic and heat storage constraints. Latent heat, which can be obtained from microencapsulated Phase Change Slurry (mPCS) – that is a mixtures of microencapsulated Phase Change Materials (mPCM), water and surfactants – is an innovative approach that can be used to overcome some of the aforementioned limitations. The viscosity of these fluids is similar to that of water, and, as a result, they can be pumped easily. Some of the thermo-physical and rheological properties and the material behaviour of flat-plate solar thermal collectors with an mPCS as the heat carrier fluid are analysed in the present work. Solar thermal systems filled with an mPCS are proposed and a prototypal system is presented. The possible advantages and drawbacks of this technology are also discussed

Optimizing the configuration of a façade module for office buildings by means of integrated thermal and lighting simulations in a total energy perspective

The building enclosure plays a relevant role in the management of the energy flows in buildings and in the exploitation of solar energy at a building scale. An optimized configuration of the façade can contribute to reduce the total energy demand of the building. Traditionally, the search for the optimal façade configuration is obtained by analyzing the heating demand and/or the cooling demand only, while the implication of the façade configuration on artificial lighting energy demand is often not addressed. A comprehensive approach (i.e. including heating, cooling and artificial lighting energy demand) is instead necessary to reduce the total energy need of the building and the optimization of the façade configuration becomes no longer straightforward, because non-linear relationships are often disclosed. The paper presents a methodology and the results of the search for the optimal transparent percentage in a façade module for low energy office buildings. The investigation is carried out in a temperate oceanic climate, on the four main orientations, on three versions of the office building and with different HVAC system’s efficiency. The results show that, regardless of the orientations and of the façade area of the building, the optimal configuration is achieved when the transparent percentage is between 35% and 45% of the total façade module area. The highest difference between the optimal configuration and the worst one occurs in the north-exposed façade, while the south-exposed façade is the one that shows the smallest difference between the optimal and the worst configuration.© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This is the authors' accepted and refereed manuscript to the article, post-print. Released with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License. The final publication is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.02.063acceptedVersio

Thermal bridges in vacuum insulation panels at building scale

In this paper a numerical analysis aimed at evaluating the thermal performance of vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) at the building scale is presented. This technology has seen considerable development over the past few years, gaining increasing penetration in the building insulation market. However, it is important to evaluate correctly the thermal bridging effect that occurs when the VIPs are coupled with joints at the building scale. To this purpose, the linear thermal transmittances of different VIP assemblies inserted in several wall configurations were assessed through a bidimensional numerical analysis. Moreover, to evaluate the influence of thermal bridges on the building energy need, quasi-steady-state simulations for a parametric building module were performed. A simple empirical model was finally built to estimate the linear thermal transmittance from basic input variables. The study demonstrates that thermal bridging effects that occur when VIPs are jointed are never negligible and they could have an important impact on the building heating energy need

The Effect of Temperature on Thermal Performance of Fumed Silica Based Vacuum Insulation Panels for Buildings

Vacuum Insulation Panels are characterized by very low thermal conductivity, which makes them alluring for building and civil sectors. However, considering the structure and composition of these materials, their application in buildings may be defined by a number of issues which need to be properly taken into account. The real performance of VIPs can be influenced by the boundary conditions (e.g. temperature) at which they work during their operation. In this paper experimental analyses aimed at characterising the relationship between the centre of panel thermal conductivity and average temperature were carried out. The experiments were performed on two VIP samples with different thickness. Moreover a comparison with non-evacuated panels and a traditional insulating material was performed