Noninvasive Residential Building Envelope Measurement Method Based on Interfacial Thermal Resistance
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 22, Issue 4
Abstract
The building envelope plays an important role for the contributions to the whole building thermal load, especially for residential houses without significant internal heat gain; hence, it is a critical component for influencing a building’s thermal performance. However, the envelope is usually acquired from the original design value, regardless of the thermal insulation degrading that has occurred during the whole long lifecycle. The main reason lies in that, with traditional methods, the in situ envelope is extremely inconvenient to measure. In this study, a simple noninvasive approach was proposed to measure the envelope using the interfacial thermal resistance from the thermal boundary layer between the envelope exterior surface and the ambient air, and the envelope surface temperature measured through the infrared thermal imaging. A field measurement procedure was developed and implemented for a typical detached residential house, along with a widely accepted method using film heat-flux sensors as a validation test. The final results show a good approximation between these two tests, which shows that the proposed method could extend the functions of thermography from only qualitative diagnosis to quantitative measurement on envelope thermal performance.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning). (2005). 2005 ASHRAE handbook: Fundamentals, ASHRAE, Atlanta.
ASTM. (1990). “Standard test method for thermal performance of building assemblies by means of a calibrated hot box.” C976-90, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. (1991). “Standard test method for steady-state heat flux measurements and thermal transmission properties by means of the heat flow meter apparatus.” C518-91, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. (1993a). “Standard test method for steady-state heat flux measurements and thermal transmission properties by means of the guarded-hot-plate apparatus.” C177-85, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. (1993b). “Standard test method for steady-state thermal performance of building assemblies by means of a guarded hot box.” C236-89, West Conshohocken, PA.
Balaras, C. A., and Argiriou, A. A. (2002). “Infrared thermography for building diagnostics.” Energy Build., 34(2), 171–183.
Christianson, L. L., and George, R. M. (1980). “Thermal resistance measurement of walls using a low-cost digital electronic device.” Trans. ASAE, 23(6), 1505–1509.
Condon, P. E. (2011). “A new measurement strategy for in-situ testing of wall thermal performance.” Technical Rep., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.
DOE. (2011). “2011 U.S. DOE buildings energy databook.” 〈http://buildingsdatabook.eren.doe.gov/〉 (Apr. 15, 2012).
DOE. (2013). “EnergyPlus engineering reference: The reference to EnergyPlus calculations.” 〈http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/pdfs/engineeringreference.pdf〉 (Aug. 24, 2014).
EIA (Energy Information Agency). (2009). “Annual energy review 2008.” DOE/EIA-0384 (2008), U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
FLIR Systems. (2007). ThermoVision SDK user’s manual, FLIR Systems, Wilsonville, OR.
Fokaides, P. A., and Kalogirou, S. A. (2011). “Application of infrared thermography for the determination of the overall heat transfer coefficient (U-value) in building envelopes.” Appl. Energy, 88(12), 4358–4365.
Ham, Y., and Golparvar-Fard, M. (2013). “Calculating the cost of heating and cooling loss for building diagnostic using EPAR (energy performance augmented reality models).” Proc., ASCE Int. Workshop on Computing in Civil Engineering, I. Brilakis, S. Lee, and B. Becerik-Gerber, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 242–249.
Haralambopoulos, D. A., and Paparsenos, G. F. (1998). “Assessing the thermal insulation of old buildings—The need for in situ spot measurements of thermal resistance and planar infrared thermography.” Energy Conserv. Manage., 39(1–2), 65–79 〈http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196890496001768〉.
ISO. (1994a). “Building components and building elements: Thermal resistance and thermal transmittance; calculation method.” ISO 6946, Geneva.
ISO. (1994b). “Thermal insulation: Building elements; in situ measurement of thermal resistance and thermal transmittance.” ISO 9869, Geneva.
Krarti, M. (2000). Energy audit of building systems, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Kuehn, T. H., Ramsey, J. W., and Threlkeld, J. L. (1998). Thermal environmental engineering, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Lagüela, S., Martínez, J., Armesto, J., and Arias, P. (2011). “Energy efficiency studies through 3D laser scanning and thermographic technologies.” Energy Build., 43(6), 1216–1221.
Modera, M. P., Sherman, M. H., and de Vinuesa, S. G. (2008). “In-situ measurement of wall thermal performance: Data interpretation and apparatus design recommendations.” Technical Rep., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.
Yesilata, B., and Turgut, P. (2007). “A simple dynamic measurement technique for comparing thermal insulation performances of anisotropic building materials.” Energy Build., 39(9), 1027–1034.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 24, 2014
Accepted: May 7, 2015
Published online: Jun 25, 2015
Discussion open until: Nov 25, 2015
Published in print: Dec 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.