Thermal Performance of a Massive Wall in the Mediterranean Climate: Experimental and Analytical Research

Chiara Tribuiani,Luca Tarabelli,Serena Summa,Costanzo Di Perna

doi:10.3390/app10134611

Chiara Tribuiani, Luca Tarabelli + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app10134611

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Journal: Applied sciences	Publication Date: Jul 3, 2020
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Marche Polytechnic University

Abstract

In the Mediterranean climate, indoor overheating and, thus, excessive use of cooling systems represents one of the main problems both for the occupants’ health and energy consumption. In order to limit this problem, an appropriate design or energy retrofitting of the building envelope is of utmost importance. The predominance of massive buildings in the Italian territory and the need to comply with Italian regulations often leads technicians to not optimal energy saving solutions. To this purpose, this experimental research was conducted on a mockup building, located in Fabriano and characterized by high thermal mass walls (W0) and two different external insulating systems: Cork based lightweight plaster (W1) and Extruded polystyrene foam panel (XPS) (W2). Furthermore, a virtual model in TRNSYS, a transient simulation software, was used to compare analytical and simulated values. Results show that W2 undergoes a higher level of thermal stress than W1, due to higher peaks in the external surface temperature and larger fluctuations in daily temperature. Therefore, a high value of thermal resistance of the external insulation and low value of external areal heat capacity on a massive building causes external surface overheating problems, thus, not representing the optimal construction solution.

Highlights

The buildings sector, which includes residential and commercial structures, increases its energy consumption by 1.3% per year
One of the main reasons is represented by the urban heating island (UHI), which leads to overheating of the cities and, to a growing increase in cooling energy demand [4]
The aim of this study is to compare the behavior of the building envelope with different external insulating layers

Summary

Introduction

The buildings sector, which includes residential and commercial structures, increases its energy consumption by 1.3% per year. The predicted amount of delivered energy for the buildings sector will show an increase in consumption of about 20% in 2018 and 22% in 2050 [1]. The European regulation, in particular, EPB Directive 2018/844, aims to promote a greater diffusion of energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings, in order to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and help increase the security of energy supply at the same time [2]. European work groups forecasted a further increase in cooling energy consumption rather than in heating energy consumption. One of the main reasons is represented by the urban heating island (UHI), which leads to overheating of the cities and, to a growing increase in cooling energy demand [4]

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