Fostering energy efficiency in buildings through aerogel-based renders

Mohamad Ibrahim (1) , Etienne Wurtz (2) , Patrick Achard (1) , Pascal Henry Biwole (3, 1)

1 PERSEE - Centre Procédés, Énergies Renouvelables, Systèmes Énergétiques
2 CEA, LITEN, Service bâtiment et systèmes thermiques, Le Bourget du Lac, France
3 LJAD - Laboratoire Jean Alexandre Dieudonné

In France, the building sector is the largest consumer of energy and accounts for about 43% of the total energy consumption and 25% of the CO2 emissions. In this study, we present a recently developed insulating rendering based on silica-aerogels. It is mainly developed for exterior thermal insulation applications. In addition to new buildings, it can be used for retrofitting existing ones since it has a high insulation performance and its application is compatible with the traditional masonry facades using the well-known ordinary techniques. The objectives are to examine the hygrothermal performance of exterior walls and to estimate the energy performance of houses with and without this rendering. On an envelope scale, numerical simulations are carried out using the software WUFI. The latter solves the coupled heat and moisture transfer within a multi-layered wall. On a full-scale house, the energy performance is estimated by the aid of numerical simulations using the whole building energy simulation program EnergyPlus. Results have shown that adding the aerogel-based rendering reduces significantly the heat losses as well as the moisture risks.

Mots clés: aerogel-based rendering; energy efficient envelopes; building rehabilitation; thermal insulation

Domaines: Energétique

Mohamad Ibrahim, Etienne Wurtz, Patrick Achard, Pascal Henry Biwole. Fostering energy efficiency in buildings through aerogel-based renders. ICAE 2015, May 2015, Donostia San Sebastián, Spain. pp.369-378. ⟨hal-01158570⟩