Energy balance of multi-layered historical buildings with interior thermal insulation: Construction of an expert online system

Abstract

In the Czech Republic, approximately 39,000 cultural monuments are registered of which some are still actively exploited. Their effective heating is a prerequisite for a favorable indoor environment in winter with respect to climatic conditions in the region of Central Europe. Given the usability of historical buildings in the present, it is very important to address appropriate thermal insulation solutions, which would be sufficiently functional, safe, and acceptable with respect to the protection of the historical value of such buildings. Taking into consideration the unsuitability of application of external thermal insulation, it is necessary to look for a suitable composition of the structure with interior thermal insulation. To achieve the best performance of a particular solution, it is important to carry out calculations based on experimentally determined input parameters of all involved construction materials and parameters defining the indoor and outdoor environment. Based on such calculations, expert indicators can be identified and benefits of the energy balance improvement of the thermal-insulated case in comparison with the one non-insulated can be assessed. The paper introduces the web-based expert system developed at the Department of Materials Engineering and Chemistry, Faculty of Civil Engineering, CTU in Prague which was designed to compare energy benefits gained by the application of various types of interior thermal insulations in historical buildings. Such a tool provides 31 expert indicators which were calculated for a wide amount of 3-layered and 4-layered constructions with respect to the climatic data from 64 different places in the Czech Republic.