Objective
This proposal aims develop an accurate and consistent rapid thermal assessment methodology that can be applied under general meteorological conditions. The principle priorities of thermal characterisation are to improve the accuracy, consistency and time needed to establish the characterisation under unsteady meteorological conditions and imperfect construction procedures. Building design calculations frequently differ from the subsequent experimentally measured values by more than fifty percent. This has been blamed on the inherent uncertainties and quality control in the construction industry, although it is equally likely that regulations based on steady state testing procedures and on design calculations based on numerical models contribute significantly to the problem. Recently it has been shown that innovative time series analysis methods can overcome these deficiencies have recently been overcome by the proposers through the development of dynamical non-linear time series analysis methods. It is therefore proposed to develop a methodology will be developed that can rapidly and accurately characterise low energy buildings. The methodology is based empincal measurements of heat flux, temperature, temperature gradients in the building envelope, infiltration and external meteorology. The thermal processes acting are confounded and compounded together in a manner that is time dependent, dynamical and sometimes nonlinear and their respective contributions will be taken into account in the methodology. The accuracy and suitability of the methodology will be assessed in a series of laboratory, test building and field trials. Novel composite insulation materials will be designed, tested and installed into a number of buildings being constructed. A number of buildings that contain the novel composites and others that conform to the current building regulations will have their thermal performance monitored and analysed.
The proposal has the following objectives:
i) To develop an accurate and consistent rapid thermal assessment methodology that can be applied under general meteorological conditions. The methodology will be a hybrid based on innovative time series analysis methods, traditional methods and numerical calculation procedures.
ii) To assess the methodology in comprehensive laboratory, test building and field trials, the latter two will run in parallel, and to develop a novel combined heat flux/temperature gradient sensor that can be used for rapid in-situ thermal performance assessment.
iii) To design, manufacture and to use novel composite thermal insulating materials into low energy buildings that are to be built during the 12 month period after the start of the project. The novel composites materials which have recently been subjected to laboratory testing and show good potential will be used in test buildings and real buildings to demonstrate the feasibility of improving the thermal performance by at least 25% over current UK building practice. The insulating properties of the materials are such that the improvement can be achieved with relatively thin slabs which can be installed without changing the construction practices or the physical dimensions of the building. This should have the effect of lowering the industries apparent resistance to the inclusion of novel insulation materials and will help to stimulate the implementation of low energy technologies in the construction sector within the European Community.
iv) To investigate the dynamical and nonlinear aspects of thermal transport and storage under unsteady meteorological conditions in-situ in low energy buildings and to empirically verify the design philosophy for low energy buildings.
v) To investigate the feasibility of developing and innovative analysis methods that can obtain a accurate and consistent multivariate characterisation of the time dependent thermal performance of the building envelope. Measuring the rate of ageing of the building envelope of components used in the building, it will be possible to provide an accurate estimate of the time to retrofit.
The program of work will have three types of output, firstly definable products such as novel composite materials, thermal performance sensors together with appropriate analysis methods and guidelines for regulatory bodies, industry and academia. In particular, methodology will be available to the community so that they can quickly and accurately assess the performance of new and retrofitted buildings and also novel materials of composites. The widespread application of novel composite insulation materials offer conservative estimated energy savings of 40 MECU per annum and a reduction in emissions of CO2 in the range of 1 billion m3 of gas per year. Secondly, specific novel matenals provide a significant improvement over standard thermal regulations and their use in the coDstruction industry will not require any modification in current building construction procedures. Thirdly, an improvement in the fundamental understanding of the dynamic, and for some processes the nonlinear, performance of low energy buildings and their components.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences meteorology
- engineering and technology materials engineering composites
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion philosophy
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
OX11 0QX DIDCOT,HARWELL,CHILTON
United Kingdom
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