Probabilistic Building Energy Performance Analysis of Ultra-High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (UHP-FRC) Façade System

Majority of building energy consumption is used to heat and cool enclosed spaces. An innovative ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHP-FRC) façade system provides the vital opportunity to reduce this energy consumption by utilizing UHP-FRC’s high structural strength hence more space for insulation. The building energy consumption and consequently the energy savings attributed to the proposed façade system are subject to uncertainties, such as variations in wall thermo-physical properties and building occupancy. The objective of this research is to assess the probabilistic energy performance of the proposed UHP-FRC façade system in comparison with conventional sandwich panel façade system. EnergyPlus was used to conduct whole building energy simulation. Three Department of Energy (DOE) prototype buildings (high-rise building, mid-rise building, and hospital) were used to represent the building context. The assessment was conducted for three cities with different climates: Chicago, Fairbanks, and El Paso. Probabilistic models were created to represent uncertainties of critical input parameters of the simulation model, such as occupancy level. We randomly sampled from the probabilistic models of the input parameters and propagated the sampled values through the simulation model using Monte Carlo simulation to create a pool of randomly generated buildings. The results show that the average of the annual energy consumptions of the randomly generated DOE prototype buildings with the UHP-FRC panels is less than the average of the annual energy consumptions of the buildings with the conventional panels for all scenarios. Moreover, the T-test (parametric) and sign test (non-parametric) also show that we can accept the alternative hypothesis that the average of the annual energy consumptions of the randomly generated DOE prototype buildings with the UHP-FRC panels is less than the average of the annual energy consumptions of the buildings with the conventional panels for all but one scenario (High-rise building in El Paso).