HIGH PERFORMANCE THERMAL INSULATION - EXAMPLES FROM THE SWISS BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Aerogel based solutions offer opportunities which combine aesthetics and cultural heritage criteria, often times in a unique way. In the field of energy efficient buildings, the search for improved envelope solutions has established Switzerland at the forefront of this type of applied research. Examples with granulate, aerogel sheets and aerogel render from 2002, 2008 and 2011 are presented [1, 2, 3]. For the development of the aerogel render [4], the speaker and his team received the Swiss environmental award for innovation in 2014. These are only a few selected examples of aerogel-based superinsulating solutions with many new ones being developed all over Europe. Experts and market analysts predict that aerogel materials will have a significant impact on the future built environment offering slim solutions, assuming that the high cost of production can be lowered to allow main markets penetration. Vacuum Insulation Panels (VIPs) are a second class of high performance thermal insulation products with earlier market entry than aerogels, thus allowing us to look back on a full decade of experience with their applications and aging behaviour [5, 6, 7]. It was found that the aging behaviour of VIPs installed in 2004 is linear under the challenging conditions existing in flat roof terrace installations. This confirms that the prediction model [8] is applicable. Sufficient data exists to confirm that VIPs in Europe are of sufficient quality to be used in the building envelope.. In the context of a new project - the IEA EBC Annex 65 - the long term questions of aerogel and VIPs will be discussed on a top level. Having a team at Empa that synthesises a whole variety of aerogel is clearly helpful [10].