Brief description
The reduction of the energy demand towards a climate-neutral building stock is one of the main objectives of the German energy concept related to buildings. The energy demand for heating can be considerably reduced with insulation measures; however, at the same time, temperatures rise in summer and in the mid-season because the internal thermal load can be dissipated via the highly insulated exterior wall components to a minor extent only. A building envelope that can adjust the heat transfer as an active building insulation element, depending on the thermal power demand of a room and depending on the outdoor conditions, enables a reduction of both, the heating energy demand and the cooling energy demand. Furthermore, with controllable insulation elements, the structural thermal building mass can be used as flexible thermal energy storage to control the building temperature.
In the project, adaptive insulation elements shall be developed based on the Knudsen effect: the thermal conductivities of porous structures significantly change with the gas pressure. The heat transfer is controlled accordingly by an insulation panel, by specifically adjusting the gas pressure to an existing pore structure. In order to develop the technology, the pore system and the gas pressure range need to be optimally coordinated. The multimodal pore system needed in the insulation panel shall be produced in the form of mesoporous spacer textiles. The gas pressure is adjusted by reversible gas/solid reactions in metal hydrides.
In the context of serial building, component demonstrators in the form of vacuum insulation elements are developed as adaptive building envelope and for thermal component activation. Both fields of application show a highly promising energy saving potential and flexibility potential.
For the transfer of this innovative technology towards application-oriented functional models, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are involved, e.g. from building services, insulation technology, textile technology, vacuum technology, manufacturing technology, measurement and control technology, building automation, specialist planners and architects.
Project duration
11/2022 – 04/2025
Funding
BMWK
AiF/IGF
Grant number: 22617 N
Project partners
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) – German Aerospace Center
Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf (DITF), Denkendorf, Germany
Contact
Maurizio Calandri, M.Sc.
Academic employee