Cool Marble Building Envelopes: The Effect of Aging on Energy Performance and Aesthetics

Abstract

Marble envelopes represent a relatively common architectural solution used in variety of historic, modern and contemporary building facades. White marble envelopes have been shown to reduce solar heat gains, while improving indoor thermal comfort and energy efficiency in summer time. While marble is useful in this context, the urban atmosphere accelerates the degradation of marble elements. This leads to changes in optical characteristics, hence the aesthetics, and affects the energy efficiency benefits offered by white marble facades. These issues are investigated in order to predict the impact of degradation on energy performance and to the aesthetic value, such as change of color and luminosity. In this study, surface degradation of white marble is analyzed by means of accelerated weathering in the laboratory while examining changes to the optical characteristics of the materials. A dynamic simulation is carried out to assess the energy performance of a building as a case study.

Building in Historical Areas: Identity Values and Energy Performance of Innovative Massive Stone Envelopes with Reference to Traditional Building Solutions

“…With respect to thermal energy performance assessment, the case study buildings were modeled on the interface software "Design Builder" (Version 5.0.3.007): this software runs EnergyPlus, one of the most widely used building energy analysis tools [10,27,28], as a simulation engine. Multiple yearly dynamic simulations were carried out for comparison purposes, to evaluate the possible energy savings achieved thanks to the application of such innovative stone envelopes with respect to traditional stone masonry solutions.…”

“…The thermal transmittance of the construction elements listed in Table 2 are lower than the limit U values set by the Italian building regulation for the climate zone "D", which are 0.32 W/(m 2 ·K) for flat or sloped roof elements, 0.36 W/(m 2 ·K) for floor elements adjacent to non-heated areas and 2.4 W/(m 2 ·K) for transparent elements [4]. The occupancy schedules for each thermal zones were compiled specifically for residential buildings, by checking each room activities from previous literature [10,34] and from Design Builder/EnergyPlus. In these schedules, the electric equipment gain and the target illuminance were also specified according to the activities assigned to each room.…”

“…Thin stone construction elements are more sensible to the external environment and degradation than thick stone elements, and their degradation has been assessed both in terms of aesthetics [9] and thermal energy performance [10] in previous research.…”

On Innovative Cool-Colored Materials for Building Envelopes: Balancing the Architectural Appearance and the Thermal-Energy Performance in Historical Districts

“…Therefore, the proposed prototypes are promising materials to be employed in historical district energy retrofitting, and future studies could analyze more in-depth the above-mentioned advantages. Moreover, it is also important to consider the performance and the appearance of the cool mortars as time passes, since the interaction with the external environment could modify optic-characteristics [56] and consequently, also their thermal-energy performance [26].…”

Colour degradation of façade coatings – the effect of nanopigments incorporation

“…Some studies, such as Revel et al [7], Ihara et al [3], Rosso et al [21], indicate that the colour difference is correlated to the thermal performance and reflectance for the nanopigments. Thus, nanopigment performance can be evaluated by the colour difference.…”