Energy Efficiency Analysis of a Building Envelope

The improvement in thermal comfort of a building passively helps in reducing its energy utilization, throughout the year. Several factors are directly related to reducing the cooling and heating load of the building such as orientation and the material used in it. In this study, authors have proposed a new wall and roof panel system namely Ferro Cellular lightweight-concrete Insulated Panel Assembly (FCIPA) for a building. This panel system has been tested experimentally in direct axial compression and is compared with brick masonry wall at small scale. Further, it has been tested theoretically for thermal analysis using eQUEST energy simulation program. The thermal study was conducted on an existing residential building of New Delhi, India, by changing the components of wall and roof of the building with three different kinds of construction material namely brick, concrete, and FCIPA. Moreover, the effect of orientation and the type of window glass on the thermal efficiency of the building were also studied. It was found that the FCIPA has the load-bearing capacity equivalent to half brick thick (120 mm) masonry wall. In addition, in terms of the energy use, FCIPA based building consumes nearly half of the thermal energy to that of the precast concrete and brick masonry based buildings. The results of the theoretical analysis also show that the north-south orientated building with longer axis running toward east-west having gray glasses window/doors openings is the most energy-efficient.