Thermally Anisotropic Building Envelope Integration into Panelized Metal Construction: Laboratory Evaluation in Guarded Hot Box

Conference · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2024

OSTI ID:2406795

Howard, Daniel ^[1]; Shrestha, Som ^[1]; Shen, Zhenglai ^[1]; Desjarlais, Andre Omer ^[1]; Zabcik, Robert ^[2]; Hun, Diana E. ^[1]; Palani, Hevar ^[3]

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1. ORNL
2. Metal Construction Association, Glenview, IL
3. University of Illinois at Chicago

The Thermally Anisotropic Building Envelope (TABE) is an active building envelope system that can exchange thermal energy with a storage medium to reduce the building’s energy demand. TABE redirects thermal energy along thin conductive layers in the building envelope to hydronic loops that are connected to thermal energy storage (TES), where it will be available to offset future energy demand when the conditions are favorable. TABEs can also be connected with a geothermal loop to reduce the building’s heating and cooling loads. Due to the importance of thermally conductive metal layers to TABE function, this technology has potential for easy adoption into panelized metal construction. In this study, we illustrate the construction process of prototype metal panels containing TABE and the laboratory evaluation in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s rotatable guarded hot box. The thermal performance of the prototype panel was assessed for both baseline and operational cases and the total heat flow extracted from the panel by TABE was quantified.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 2406795
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English