EFFECTIVE THERMAL INSULATION – THE OPERATIVE FACTOR OF A PASSIVE BUILDING MODEL Edited by Amjad Almusaed Effective Thermal Insulation – The Operative Factor of a Passive Building Model Edited by Amjad Almusaed Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. 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Publishing Process Manager Martina Blecic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team First published March, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Effective Thermal Insulation – The Operative Factor of a Passive Building Model, Edited by Amjad Almusaed p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0311-0 Contents Preface VII Part 1 Passive Building Model and Thermal Insulation 1 Chapter 1 Improvement of Thermal Insulation by Environmental Means 3 Amjad Almusaed and Asaad Almssad Chapter 2 Passive and Low Energy Housing by Optimization 23 Amjad Almusaed and Asaad Almssad Part 2 Energy Efficiency upon Passive Building 43 Chapter 3 Traditional Houses with Stone Walls in Temperate Climates: The Impact of Various Insulation Strategies 45 Francesca Stazi, Fabiola Angeletti and Costanzo di Perna Chapter 4 High Energy Performance with Transparent (Translucent) Envelopes 61 Luis Alonso, César Bedoya, Benito Lauret and Fernando Alonso Chapter 5 A New Method for Numerical Modeling of Heat Transfer in Thermal Insulations Products 81 Sohrab Veiseh Preface A true architecture is where the thinking and human feelings come into play and create something completely harmonious, which ensemble structure possesses a significance. A building has to be both poem and machine. Few buildings achieve this felicitous equipoise. Those that are sensually motivating often lack sound construction technique, or fail to fully meet operational requirements. The idea of sustainability is a philosophical standpoint or a procedure that is looking for the ideal. It is based upon our looking back at the damage that our interaction with our environment has caused and determining for the future to guarantee that our actions today do not adversely influence the world for generations to come. Sustainable development has emphasis on limiting infrastructure and material usage and helping contribute to affordability during the construction of a project, by eliminating some costs altogether. In the longer term, sustainable design’s principles of energy and healthy architectural spaces and material durability help to make a building affordable. Renewing ability is the key to our human range and our prime resource for architecture. The development of the energy sector is especially relevant as it is inevitably linked to many aspects of sustainability, e.g. protection of the natural life- support systems. The first law of existing energy phenomena in ambient consider that the energy form cannot be creased or destroyed. Its form may be changed, but its magnitude persists. This is the essence of the first law of thermodynamics, more commonly known as the law of conservation of energy. The gap, which has existed in the past between the pure theory of heat transfer and its practical demand in a thermal insulation system, has been bridged. Passing from the term of thermal insulation such factor to thermal insulation such process, is something like moving from a line with one dimension to area with two dimensions. Insulation is defined as a material or combination of materials, which retard the flow of heat. Many hypotheses, objects and decisive factors are involved in this research. The passive building provides us with the chance to reach extremely low levels of energy consumption by employing high-quality, cost-efficient measures to general building components - such measures are in turn off advantage to the ecology and economy sector. Passive building offers an exciting opportunity to achieve environmental and economic benefits. The concept of passive building deserves a deeper explanation. The hypothesis is that this affiliation leads to positive responses in terms of human performance and health even emotional states. VIII Preface The new movement aims to make environmentally friendly energy upon building more effective and development process occurs by effectively managing of natural resources. This path will discover a far deeper integration of nature with the built environment and the potential synergies in exchanging energy and nutrients across the human-nature interface. Thermal insulation material is a traditional material that extends to several thousands of years, using thermal insulation in practice, from skins and mud to space, fibers and fillers. The materials can be modified to any size, form or surface. By diminishing of heat loss or gain, insulation can assist to sustain process temperature to programmed value or within a predetermined variety. The insulation thickness has to be adequate to limit the heat move in a dynamic system or diminish the temperature change, with time, in a static system. The thermal belongings of insulating materials and other standard fishing vessel building materials are identified or can be precisely calculated. The sum of heat transmission throughout any combination of materials can be calculated. On the other hand, it is essential to recognize and understand technical terms to be able to calculate heat losses and appreciate the factors that are concerned. Only in recent years has humanity’s earliest accomplishment, protection from temperature extremes, become satisfactorily regarded as to constitute a ground of engineering and a science. It is easy to determine the effective thermal insulation material fitting for different building’s programs. Moreover, it will be tricky when we talk about thermal insulation systems in such a process. Today, the orientation is to establish which optimal and which competent system is to be used in different structures of buildings. It can be a phenomenon, a mathematical method, or a sustainer material. Our assignment is to find the optimal solution to be selected. This book provides the theoretical heat transfer issues based on practical ways in order to give worked-out examples of such problems in terms of practical use. Amjad Almusaed Archcrea Institute, Aarhus Denmark . EFFECTIVE THERMAL INSULATION – THE OPERATIVE FACTOR OF A PASSIVE BUILDING MODEL Edited by Amjad Almusaed Effective Thermal Insulation – The Operative Factor of a Passive. periods. Green walls or roofs, with their landscaping and incorporation of natural materials, are ideal in their Effective Thermal Insulation – The Operative Factor of a Passive Building Model . Fig. 2. Urban heat island dealings ( sources: Amjad Almusaed 2010) Effective Thermal Insulation – The Operative Factor of a Passive Building Model 6 islands have been abundantly addressed