FARADAY Fast Track Proposal - Vacuum Window Design Optimisation and Thermal Comfort Implications

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Not Cross-cutting
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy

Professor K Lomas
Civil and Building Engineering
Loughborough University

Standard

EPSRC

01 April 2003

31 March 2006

36 months

£131,134

Management & business studies

East Midlands

Faraday - Eng for Infrastructure -- Process Environment and Sustainability

Professor K Lomas, Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University

Dr J Mardaljevic, Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development (IESD), De Montfort University

Project Contact, Northern Ireland Housing Executive
Project Contact, Redbus Serraglaze Limited

The research will examine the performance of low heat loss evacuated glazing windows with a mid-pane U-value approaching 0.6W/m2K. A range of vacuum glazings will be manufactured using a patented, low temperature (<200C) edge sealing technique developed at the University of Ulster (UU). Glazings will be produced using tempered and un-tempered glass with different low emissivity films. Stress analysis codes will be developed for the vacuum glazing and will be used to assist with frame design. Generic frames will be modelled, designed and fabricated for inclusion with the vacuum glazings. The window systems will be characterised experimentally and through field testing. A comprehensive thermal/stress model will be developed and validated with measurements from tests in the hotbox calorimeter. The time varying irradiation input to the models will be predicted by De Montfort University (DMU), as will the transmitted solar irradiances. These, together with the predicted time-varyingglazing temperatures, will be used for a detailed radiative heat transfer comfort analysis of the near-window environments using an advanced model at DMU. The project will be the first time that the comfort performance of windows will be carried out to reproduce reality at such a level of accuracy

01/01/07