Characterization of adaptive opaque facades

The technology used in building facades has been gradually improving in recent years in order to increase thermal insulation and airtightness. This is done with the goal of reducing the overall energy consumption of buildings. These envelope systems have now become standard and are designed to ensure comfort under normal conditions.

In order to address the climate change crisis and further decrease energy usage, building facades must perform optimally in all environmental conditions. Adaptive facades are considered a promising solution because they can independently and reversibly adapt certain functions, characteristics, or behaviors based on different conditions.

However, the adaptive opaque façade systems require flexible testing protocols to characterize their thermal performance under their various operation modes. A new scientific paper, recently published in the journal Building & Environment, analyses the experimental testing protocols and standards that have been reported to characterize the dynamic thermal performance of adaptive opaque façades.

"Few laboratory tests characterized adaptive opaque facades' thermal performance and moreover, reported tests have notable differences in the set-up configurations and protocols. Based on the findings of this literature review, suggestions are made to facilitate a more complete testing procedure to characterize the dynamic thermal performance of opaque façade components" says Miren Juaristi, researcher Eurac Research and first author of the study. "This article is the result of my short research stay at the University of Colorado to review and compare laboratory testing procedures for innovative adaptive opaque facades.This paper has been funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen South Tyrol, Italy, in the framework of the Programme “Short international research stays” explains Juaristi.

Here the original article