Super Insulation Materials—An Application to Historical Buildings

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to present the use of super thermal insulation materials for a historical building through a calculation-based case study. The development of the insulation materials is based on the objective of making buildings as energy efficient as possible, and the energy loss should be kept to a minimum, for both new and existing buildings. For this purpose, the thermal insulation materials used so far have not always achieved maximum effectiveness. In the case of historical buildings, it is particularly difficult to solve insulation issues, as the building cannot lose its former appearance. However, aerogel and vacuum insulation panels can also be used as thin thermal protective layers. In this paper, we will specifically deal with the presentation of the possible application of super thermal insulation materials, such as vacuum insulation panels and aerogels. We will present thermal conductivity measurement results as well as their application through building energetic calculations applied to a historical building as a case study. We will also present certain calculations regarding the costs. The paper highlights that savings of energy costs of approximately 30% can be reached using vacuum insulation sandwich panels. Furthermore, the overall thermal transmittance of the building also decreases by about 35% if vacuum insulation sandwich panels are used for the refurbishment.

Keywords

• vacuum insulation panel
• aerogel
• Holometrix
• thermal conductivity
• historical buildings