Study of the impact on energy demand due to the use of new opaque panels with recycled additives on curtain walls on an office building

Abstract

The use of curtain walls on new and renovated office buildings’ façades is very usual. The optimal use of the natural illumination with this type of walls means both an energy saving on lighting and a better visual comfort for the office workers. In addition, thermal gains in the Winter and a solar control in order to avoid overheating in the Summer can be obtained with a correct design. The largest area of curtain walls is made up of transparent glass sheets. They are connected to one another and to the building structure using structural joinery with isolating joints. Also, curtain walls have often opaque areas to hide structural or systems parts of the buildings. They are made using metallic or opaque glass sheets on the outside and thermal isolation and lining on the inside. An innovative prototype of a mortar panel with recycled materials from industrial waste has been developed. It should keep or improve the thermal and acoustic isolation behaviour of the metallic sheets used, and reduce the weight. In this work, the thermal performance of a representative office building has been assessed, using the physical characteristics obtained from testing the new panel. Two kinds of offices, the first with only one façade, and the second with two cornered façades, has been simulated by means of TRNSYS package. They have been assessed from all four cardinal orientations, and at three representative Spanish climates: the coldest, the hottest and an intermediate one. The results obtained from the simulations using the new panel and the metallic sheet have been compared. The thermal behaviour of the mortar panel is equivalent to the metallic panel one, and even better in some aspects. The mortar panel is more sustainable because the waste and the raw material produced and the energy used are reduced. © 2018 University of Minho. All rights reserved.