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Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment
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Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2019) | Viewed by 18526

Printed Edition Available!
A printed edition of this Special Issue is available here.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Robert Černý

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Materials Engineering and Chemistry, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
Interests: heat transport; moisture transport; energy; hygric properties; thermal properties; mortars; cement binders
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ákos Lakatos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Building Services and Building Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Interests: thermal insulation; energy in buildings; sorption; insulation materials; thermal conductivity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Václav Kočí

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Materials Engineering and Chemistry, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
Interests: heat transport; moisture transport; computational modeling; energy balance calculations; building energy model
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The building industry is influenced by many factors and trends reflecting the current situation and developments in the social, economic, technical, or scientific fields. One of the most important trends is the effort to minimize energy demand, which can be achieved by promoting buildings with better thermal insulating capabilities of their envelopes and better efficiency of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.

Any credible assessment of building energy performance includes the identification and simulation of heat and mass transfer phenomena in both the building envelope and inside the building. As the interaction between the design elements, changes in the climate, behavior of different users, effectiveness of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems and lighting is not straightforward, the assessment procedure may present a complex and challenging task. The simulations should involve all factors affecting the energy performance of the analyzed building.

However, the appropriate choice of physical model of heat and mass transfer for different building elements is not the only factor affecting the output of building energy simulations. The accuracy of the material parameters applied in the models as input data is another potential source of uncertainty. For instance, neglecting the dependence of hygric and thermal parameters on moisture content may affect the energy assessment in a significant way. Boundary conditions in the form of weather data sets represent yet another crucial factor determining the uncertainty of the outputs. In light of trends in climate change, this problem is becoming even more important.

This Special Issue aims at providing recent developments in laboratory analyses, computational modeling and in situ measurements related to the assessment of building energy performance based on the proper identification of heat and mass transfer processes in building structures.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • Development, calibration and validation of advanced mathematical models for the description of heat and mass transfer in building materials and structures
  • Computational modeling of heat and mass transfer in building materials and structures aimed at energy performance assessment
  • Boundary conditions for building energy performance simulations in light of climate change trends
  • Advanced experimental techniques for the determination of heat and mass transport and the storage properties of building materials
  • On site monitoring and verification of building energy performance
  • Research and development of new materials with high potential to improve the energy performance of buildings

Prof. Robert Černý
Dr. Ákos Lakatos
Dr. Václav Kočí
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • heat and mass transfer
  • building materials
  • buildings
  • energy performance
  • computational modeling
  • experimental analysis

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 5001 KiB  
Article
Self-Heating Ability of Geopolymers Enhanced by Carbon Black Admixtures at Different Voltage Loads
by Lukáš Fiala, Michaela Petříková, Wei-Ting Lin, Luboš Podolka and Robert Černý
Energies 2019, 12(21), 4121; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12214121 - 29 Oct 2019
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2696
Abstract
Sustainable development in the construction industry can be achieved by the design of multifunctional materials with good mechanical properties, durability, and reasonable environmental impacts. New functional properties, such as self-sensing, self-heating, or energy harvesting, are crucially dependent on electrical properties, which are very [...] Read more.
Sustainable development in the construction industry can be achieved by the design of multifunctional materials with good mechanical properties, durability, and reasonable environmental impacts. New functional properties, such as self-sensing, self-heating, or energy harvesting, are crucially dependent on electrical properties, which are very poor for common building materials. Therefore, various electrically conductive admixtures are used to enhance their electrical properties. Geopolymers based on waste or byproduct precursors are promising materials that can gain new functional properties by adding a reasonable amount of electrically conductive admixtures. The main aim of this paper lies in the design of multifunctional geopolymers with self-heating abilities. Designed geopolymer mortars based on blast-furnace slag activated by water glass and 6 dosages of carbon black (CB) admixture up to 2.25 wt. % were studied in terms of basic physical, mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties (DC). The self-heating ability of the designed mortars was experimentally determined at 40 and 100 V loads. The percolation threshold for self-heating was observed at 1.5 wt. % of carbon black with an increasing self-heating performance for higher CB dosages. The highest power of 26 W and the highest temperature increase of about 110 °C were observed for geopolymers with 2.25 wt. % of carbon black admixture at 100 V. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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18 pages, 5043 KiB  
Article
Optimising Convolutional Neural Networks to Predict the Hygrothermal Performance of Building Components
by Astrid Tijskens, Hans Janssen and Staf Roels
Energies 2019, 12(20), 3966; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12203966 - 18 Oct 2019
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2380
Abstract
Performing numerous simulations of a building component, for example to assess its hygrothermal performance with consideration of multiple uncertain input parameters, can easily become computationally inhibitive. To solve this issue, the hygrothermal model can be replaced by a metamodel, a much simpler mathematical [...] Read more.
Performing numerous simulations of a building component, for example to assess its hygrothermal performance with consideration of multiple uncertain input parameters, can easily become computationally inhibitive. To solve this issue, the hygrothermal model can be replaced by a metamodel, a much simpler mathematical model which mimics the original model with a strongly reduced calculation time. In this paper, convolutional neural networks predicting the hygrothermal time series (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, moisture content) are used to that aim. A strategy is presented to optimise the networks’ hyper-parameters, using the Grey-Wolf Optimiser algorithm. Based on this optimisation, some hyper-parameters were found to have a significant impact on the prediction performance, whereas others were less important. In this paper, this approach is applied to the hygrothermal response of a massive masonry wall, for which the prediction performance and the training time were evaluated. The outcomes show that, with well-tuned hyper-parameter settings, convolutional neural networks are able to capture the complex patterns of the hygrothermal response accurately and are thus well-suited to replace time-consuming standard hygrothermal models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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13 pages, 2033 KiB  
Article
Preparation and Characterization of Novel Plaster with Improved Thermal Energy Storage Performance
by Jan Fořt, Radimír Novotný, Anton Trník and Robert Černý
Energies 2019, 12(17), 3318; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12173318 - 28 Aug 2019
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2396
Abstract
Thermal energy storage systems based on latent heat utilization represent a promising way to achieve building sustainability and energy efficiency. The application of phase change materials (PCMs) can substantially improve the thermal performance of building envelopes, decrease the energy consumption, and support the [...] Read more.
Thermal energy storage systems based on latent heat utilization represent a promising way to achieve building sustainability and energy efficiency. The application of phase change materials (PCMs) can substantially improve the thermal performance of building envelopes, decrease the energy consumption, and support the thermal comfort maintenance, especially during peak periods. On this account, the newly formed form-stable PCM (FSPCM) based on diatomite impregnated by dodecanol is used as an admixture for design of interior plasters with enhanced thermal storage capability. In this study, the effect of FSPCM admixture on functional properties of plasters enriched by 8, 16 and 24 wt.% is determined. On this account, the assessment of physical, thermal, hygric, and mechanical properties is done in order to correlate obtained results with applied FSPCM dosages. Achieved results reveal only a minor influence of applied FSPCM admixture on material properties when compared to negative impacts of commercially produced PCMs. The differential scanning calorimetry discloses variations of the phase change temperature, which ranging from 20.75 °C to 21.68 °C and the effective heat capacity increased up to 15.38 J/g accordingly to the applied FSPCM dosages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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12 pages, 3944 KiB  
Article
Effects of the Heat Treatment in the Properties of Fibrous Aerogel Thermal Insulation
by Ákos Lakatos, Attila Csík, Anton Trník and István Budai
Energies 2019, 12(10), 2001; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12102001 - 25 May 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2784
Abstract
Nowadays, besides the use of conventional insulations (plastic foams and wool materials), aerogels are one of the most promising thermal insulation materials. As one of the lightest solid materials available today, aerogels are manufactured through the combination of a polymer with a solvent, [...] Read more.
Nowadays, besides the use of conventional insulations (plastic foams and wool materials), aerogels are one of the most promising thermal insulation materials. As one of the lightest solid materials available today, aerogels are manufactured through the combination of a polymer with a solvent, forming a gel. For buildings, the fiber-reinforced types are mainly used. In this paper, the changes both in the thermal performance and the material structure of the aerogel blanket are followed after thermal annealing. The samples are put under isothermal heat treatments at 70 °C for weeks, as well as at higher temperatures (up to 210 °C) for one day. The changes in the sorption properties that result from the annealing are presented. Furthermore, the changes in the thermal conductivity are followed by a Holometrix Lambda heat flow meter. The changes in the structure and surface of the material due to the heat treatment are investigated by X-ray diffraction and with scanning electron microscopy. Besides, the above-mentioned measurement results of differential scanning calorimetry experiments are also presented. As a result of using equipment from different laboratories that support each other, we found that the samples go through structural changes after undergoing thermal annealing. We manifested that the aerogel granules separate down from the glass fibers and grow up. This phenomenon might be responsible for the change in the thermal conductivity of the samples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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21 pages, 41582 KiB  
Article
Determination of a Methodology to Derive Correlations Between Window Opening Mass Flow Rate and Wind Conditions Based on CFD Results
by Panagiotis Stamatopoulos, Panagiotis Drosatos, Nikos Nikolopoulos and Dimitrios Rakopoulos
Energies 2019, 12(9), 1600; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091600 - 26 Apr 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2973
Abstract
This paper presents a methodology for the development of an empirical equation which can provide the air mass flow rate imposed by single-sided wind-driven ventilation of a room, as a function of external wind speed and direction, using the results from Computational Fluid [...] Read more.
This paper presents a methodology for the development of an empirical equation which can provide the air mass flow rate imposed by single-sided wind-driven ventilation of a room, as a function of external wind speed and direction, using the results from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The proposed methodology is useful for a wide spectrum of applications, in which no access to experimental data or conduction of several CFD runs is possible, deriving a simple expression of natural ventilation rate, which can be further used for energy analysis of complicated building geometries in 0-D models or in object-oriented software codes. The developed computational model simulates a building, which belongs to Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH, Aachen University, Aachen, Germany) and its surrounding environment. A tilted window represents the opening that allows the ventilation of the adjacent room with fresh air. The derived data from the CFD simulations for the air mass flow were fitted with a Gaussian function in order to achieve the development of an empirical equation. The numerical simulations have been conducted using the Ansys Fluent v15.0® software package. In this work, the k-w Shear Stress Transport (SST) model was implemented for the simulation of turbulence, while the Boussinesq approximation was used for the simulation of the buoyancy forces. The coefficient of determination R2 of the curve is in the range of 0.84–0.95, depending on the wind speed. This function can provide the mass flow rate through the open window of the investigated building and subsequently the ventilation rate of the adjacent room in air speed range from 2.5 m/s to 16 m/s without the necessity of further numerical simulations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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13 pages, 8708 KiB  
Article
Operation Testing of an Advanced Personalized Ventilation System
by Imre Csáky, Tünde Kalmár and Ferend Kalmár
Energies 2019, 12(9), 1596; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091596 - 26 Apr 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2319
Abstract
Using personalized ventilation systems in office buildings, important energy saving might be obtained, which may improve the indoor air quality and thermal comfort sensation of occupants at the same time. In this paper, the operation testing results of an advanced personalized ventilation system [...] Read more.
Using personalized ventilation systems in office buildings, important energy saving might be obtained, which may improve the indoor air quality and thermal comfort sensation of occupants at the same time. In this paper, the operation testing results of an advanced personalized ventilation system are presented. Eleven different air terminal devices were analyzed. Based on the obtained air velocities and turbulence intensities, one was chosen to perform thermal comfort experiments with subjects. It was shown that, in the case of elevated indoor temperatures, the thermal comfort sensation can be improved considerably. A series of measurements were carried out in order to determine the background noise level and the noise generated by the personalized ventilation system. It was shown that further developments of the air distribution system are needed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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16 pages, 3161 KiB  
Article
A Method for Rapid Evaluation of Thermal Performance of Wall Assemblies Based on Geographical Location
by Jan Kočí, Václav Kočí and Robert Černý
Energies 2019, 12(7), 1353; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12071353 - 09 Apr 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2149
Abstract
In this study, we present a method for the rapid evaluation of thermal performance of building envelopes without the need of using sophisticated and time-consuming computational modeling. The proposed approach is based on the prediction of monthly energy balances per unit area of [...] Read more.
In this study, we present a method for the rapid evaluation of thermal performance of building envelopes without the need of using sophisticated and time-consuming computational modeling. The proposed approach is based on the prediction of monthly energy balances per unit area of a wall assembly using monthly averages of temperature and relative humidity, as well as the elevation of a building’s location. Contrary to most other methods, the obtained results include how moisture content in the wall effects its thermal performance. The developed formulas for calculation of monthly energy balances are verified for nine commonly used wall assemblies in Central Europe in 10 randomly selected locations. The observed agreement of the predicated data was determined using advanced finite-element simulation tools and hourly climatic data, which makes for good prerequisites for the further application of the method in both research and building practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat and Mass Transfer in Building Energy Performance Assessment)
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