Abstract
This article describes an aging study of a foam-vacuum insulation panel (VIP) composite insulation board installed on a test wall in a natural exposure test facility through a 30-month period. Silica-based VIPs with a polymeric barrier film were used in this study. The study results showed the effectiveness of a VIP-based insulation to reduce the heat gains and losses through a wall compared to regular rigid foam insulation of the same thickness. However, the long-term performance monitoring indicated a gradual decline in the thermal performance of the foam-VIP composite. In addition, one-dimensional numerical models were created to simulate the in situ behavior of the foam-VIP composite. One model utilized constant thermal conductivities of the test wall components and another utilized temperature-dependent thermal conductivities; the latter used measurements of conductivity over temperatures ranging from −15 to 55 ◦C. The results of the simulations emphasized the need to use both temperature and time-dependent material properties for accurately predicting the long-term performance of VIP-based insulation systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2539 |
| Journal | Energies |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 13 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
Funding
This work was supported by the Building Technologies Office of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The authors specifically thank DOE Technology Manager, Mr. Sven Mumme, for his support of this work. Funding: This work was supported by the Building Technologies Office of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The authors specifically thank DOE Technology Manager, Mr. Sven Mumme, for his support of this work. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, One Bethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA Department of MEEP, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-865-574-0917 This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
Keywords
- Natural aging
- Numerical simulations
- Temperature-dependent properties
- Vacuum insulation panels