This paper discusses experimental and simulated data regarding a thermal bridge consisting in a reinforced concrete corner pillar, which belongs to a building dating back to the 1980s and located in Southern Italy. The inner surface temperatures of the walls in close proximity to the corner have been measured through four temperature probes and by means of thermal imaging techniques. Moreover, indoor and outdoor temperatures were measured to provide suitable boundary conditions in the numerical simulations, performed with a commercial software tool widely used in Italy, based on 2D finite element techniques. The experimental measurements show that, at a distance farther than 50 cm from the corner, the surface temperatures get almost constant, meaning that the thermal bridging effect becomes less evident. However, the corner surface temperature is around 1.5 °C lower than in the undisturbed flanking walls, which explains the increase by the 20% in the heat losses. In terms of heat flux, the discrepancy between simulations and measurements is less than 5%. The results also include the calculation of the linear thermal transmittance with a series of relations proposed in well-known atlases for corner pillars, in order to verify their reliability.
Experimental measurements and numerical simulations for a corner pillar thermal bridge in concrete uninsulated building
Evola G.
Primo
;Gagliano A.;Marletta L.
2023-01-01
Abstract
This paper discusses experimental and simulated data regarding a thermal bridge consisting in a reinforced concrete corner pillar, which belongs to a building dating back to the 1980s and located in Southern Italy. The inner surface temperatures of the walls in close proximity to the corner have been measured through four temperature probes and by means of thermal imaging techniques. Moreover, indoor and outdoor temperatures were measured to provide suitable boundary conditions in the numerical simulations, performed with a commercial software tool widely used in Italy, based on 2D finite element techniques. The experimental measurements show that, at a distance farther than 50 cm from the corner, the surface temperatures get almost constant, meaning that the thermal bridging effect becomes less evident. However, the corner surface temperature is around 1.5 °C lower than in the undisturbed flanking walls, which explains the increase by the 20% in the heat losses. In terms of heat flux, the discrepancy between simulations and measurements is less than 5%. The results also include the calculation of the linear thermal transmittance with a series of relations proposed in well-known atlases for corner pillars, in order to verify their reliability.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.