Transpired solar collectors (TSCs) are an elegantly simple, façade-integrated solar air-heating technology that is widely used to pre-heat the ventilation air supply of buildings. TSCs have historically been manufactured from long profiled pre-finished steel cladding sheets and used on industrial buildings, with which they are aesthetically compatible. Buildings such as offices and multi-storey residential buildings, however, often use flat building façade elements. In order to provide architects with the choice between a profiled or flat TSC absorber, which may be more suitable aesthetically in some circumstances, a novel, flat, cassette-panel TSC (CP-TSC) solar air-heating system has been developed and trialled in situ. Two prototype CP-TSC systems were installed onto an unoccupied 1960s multi-storey residential building at Oxford Brookes University and operated for 95 days during the winter of 2010/2011. The results show that under typical operating conditions, the CP-TSCs heated the ventilation air stream by 10–15°C on clear-skied, winter days, and that this air temperature rise can be predicted by a relatively simple energy balance model.
The properties of insulation materials used in the building envelope have a strong influence on thermal performance of buildings, in particular the U-value of their walls/roofs. This paper summarises current research and developments of vacuum insulation panels (VIP), which provide a quantum leap forward in thermal insulation, offering exciting opportunities for both new and retrofitted buildings. Use of VIP not only provides excellent thermal performance to meet the requirements of building regulations, as well as offering a great potential to reduce energy consumption in buildings, but also increases the available internal area of buildings. However, a real indication of overall thermal performance in use must take into account the thermal bridging that occurs around the edges of the panel caused by the construction details. The performance is also dependent on the maintenance of a vacuum against the influences of envelope permeability, outgassing, moisture and physical damage. More research and development is needed in the practical application of VIP in building solutions.
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