Three researchers from the Politecnico di Milano, A. Alongi, A. Angelotti, and L. Mazzarella, have recently published in the journal Building and Environment a paper explaining an experimental setup to validate a steady periodic analytical model for Breathing Walls.

Breathing Walls are a Dynamic Insulation system that allows airflow to go through air permeable layers to provide the necessary room air change. That makes a significant portion of the building envelope a heat recovery unit and filter, helping to properly ventilate the building. The same air motion through the layers also reduces or increases the thermal coupling between outdoor and indoor environments, improving thermal efficiency. 

The paper derives a novel method to describe breathing wall behavior using Dirichlet steady periodic boundary conditions. The method is experimentally evaluated with the help of greenTEG’s gSKIN heat flux sensors. The experiments show that increasing the airflow velocity across the Breathing Wall from 0 to 12 mm/s enhances the thermal coupling between the two environments, namely reduces the wall thermal capacity, with a decrease in the penetration time from 4.3 h to 3 h. Furthermore, the model accurately predicts the temperature distribution across the wall.

As the need for more sustainable building methods grows globally, better insulation techniques will be developed and adopted. At greenTEG, we are happy to support this effort with our sensors, moving from calculations to measurements as the best way to achieve sustainability in the building industry.

Thermal bridge effect of vertical diagonal tie connectors in precast concrete sandwich panels: an experimental and computational study

greenTEG flies to the International Space Station!

Dynamic Model-Based Monitoring of Human Thermal Comfort for Real-Time and Adaptive Control Applications

Passive cooling of Li-Ion cells with direct-metal-laser-sintered aluminium heat exchangers filled with phase change materials

Aero- and thermodynamical optimization of cooling tunnels for chocolate systems

Reduced-scale hot box method for thermal characterization of window insulation materials

Thermal signature of ion intercalation and surface redox reactions mechanisms in model pseudocapacitive electrodes

The Cold Tube: Membrane assisted radiant cooling for condensation free outdoor comfort in the tropics