Practical Applications of SIMs: Retrofitting at the Building Scale

Conference poster, 2017

In this extended abstract and poster, conclusions from the IEA EBC Annex 65 Subtask 3 on Field scale performance of SIMs are presented. Full scale experiments provide knowledge of practical and technical difficulties as well as data for service life estimations of super insulation materials (SIM). For certain conclusions to be drawn from existing case studies, long-term monitoring is essential. Unfortunately, monitoring is only performed in few case studies. In total 10 case studies using advanced porous materials (APM) and 22 using vacuum insulation panels (VIP), spread over 12 countries on 3 continents, have been scrutinized. Four main remaining challenges were identified and the status of these are discussed in the report based on discussions throughout IEA EBC Annex 65. The long-term performance (25-100 years) cannot be entirely determined due to lack of data for longer time period exceeding 15 years. However, there were few claims concerning the malfunction of SIMs in construction.