The Use of Aerogel-Enhanced Blanket for Thermal Bridging Correction in Concrete and Steel Buildings

Thermal bridges have been widely proved to significantly impact the building energy performance. This study will use aerogel-enhanced blanket to provide a solution for improving thermal bridges. The common method to include thermal bridges in the whole energy modelling is the equivalent U-value method; this does not take into account the dynamic effect of thermal bridges. Hence this research is focused on the dynamic effect of the thermal bridges before and after the application of aerogel-enhanced blanket in a mid-rise residential building. This study includes: 1) two different building systems: concrete building and steel building 2) three different climate conditions 3) Five different details: balcony to floor, shelf angle location, foundation to wall, wall to floor and wall to roof 4) two different modeling approaches: equivalent U-value method and 3D dynamic method 5) two different thermal bridges: standard and improved details with aerogel-enhanced blanket. The purpose of this research is to analyze the standard details of thermal bridges and to improve them with the help of aerogel-enhanced blanket. The research aims to determine how effective aerogel-enhanced blanket are for thermal bridging correction and to compare the results between two different building modeling approaches.