LoginThis paper presents results of an ongoing research conducted at the BEST Polytechnic ofMilan about the correlation between the over time degradation of building envelopcomponents and the indoor climate. There are many studies in literature about the degradationover time of various characteristics or properties of materials and components used in buildingenvelops but none of these assess the influence of this degradation on the indoor climate (i.e.minimum temperature in the winter conditions, maximum temperature in summer conditions,etc.) or on the indoor climate calculations that can be done using international or localstandards.The research, focused on external vertical walls, started from the study of how the envelopeof buildings works, highlighting five major contributions on the indoor climate quality.We called these five contributions essential requirements of building envelopecomponents and started to analyse how the degradation of the materials constituting thebuilding envelope influences the performances supplied by the building components and howthe changing of the performances of building components affects the thermal comfort.The second phase of the research, starting from indoor climate conditions stated by Italianlaws (i.e. the indoor air temperature during winter), has been focused on the researching oflimits for the degradation of characteristics or properties of materials. This part of the researchcame out with what we call the performance limits of building components characteristics,that is to say the boundaries that are not to be passed during the degradation of buildingcomponents if we want the indoor climate to satisfy standards and laws in Italy.The last part of the research has been dedicated to a sensitive analysis of the resultsobtained to: (a) errors that may occur during the design process in estimating initial values anddegradations of building materials used; (b) errors that may be present in the modelling ofoutdoor climate.
Influence of the degradation of building components on thermal comfort
Year:
2003
Bibliographic info:
Healthy Buildings 2003 - Proceedings 7th International Conference (7th-11th December 2003) - National University of Singapore - Vol. 2, pp 256-261, 3 fig., 2 Tab., 5 Ref.