MF-RETROFIT : Multifunctional facades of reduced thickness for fast and cost-effective retrofitting

http://www.mf-retrofit.eu/ Footage contribution by all consortium partners Production coordination by Maria Pappa Edited and directed by Thanos Karvounis MF-RETROFIT Multifunctional facades of reduced thickness for fast and cost-effective retrofitting Specific Programme: “Collaborative” Theme: FP7-2013-NMP-ENV-EeB Grant Agreement no: 609345 In Europe, more than 40% of the overall energy consumption and 36% of the overall CO2 emissions are produced by buildings. During the last decade, many governments and international organizations have put significant effort towards energy efficiency improvement in existing buildings. Although energy efficiency of old buildings can be drastically improved by exterior wall panel installation, such systems lack of multi-functionality and thus are consider as obsolete. MF-Retrofit is a project within the EU Seventh Framework Programme in the area of Energy efficient buildings. The objective of this 3.5 years project is to develop a multifunctional facade by employing innovative technologies that can improve all aspects of an exterior facade panel. 4 RTDs: the National Technical University of Athens, the Center for Research and Technology Hellas, the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology and the University of Aveiro, together with 5 SMEs: Advance composite fibers, MBN nanomaterialia, Advanced Material Simulation, IZNAB and CoolHaven and one Large Enterprise Tremco Illbruck, took the challenge up and collaborated to provide a multifunctional façade. The anchored layer is the foundation of the panel. It is composed by Polyurethane foam which has incorporated PCMs with a calcium carbonate cell. This layer is composed by 3 sublayers, a soft, a hard and another soft layer. The first soft PU layer is compressed against the outer wall, covering defects and offering acoustic insulation, the hard PU layer supports the thermal insulation and fire protection and the second soft PU layer protects the insulation layer against mechanical forces. The main insulation layer provides structural integrity to the MF- Retrofit application without increasing significantly the total weight of the panel. This layer consists of a lightweight geopolymer with a compressive strength of 10MPa and an apparent density of less than 1g/cm3. Furthermore, the durable layer possesses low water absorption and is inflammable. The external layer is composed by three different materials: Glass fiber composite, intumescent coat and a photocatalytic paint that works as whole in order to provide to the panel mechanical stability, enhanced fire protection and a self-cleaning surface, respectively. A number of physical and mechanical properties have been evaluated: Uniaxial tensile test, hardness tests, 3 point bending test and accelerated aging tests. The main purpose of the Solvent- free intumescent layer is to provide a good level of insulation to the panel during a fire. Under Fire and Spread of flame tests the solvent free formulation intumescent exhibits very good fire protective performance that is similar or even superior to the solvent containing formulations. Finally the surface coating applied by a paint gives the final aesthetics of the panel and at the same time photocatalytic properties - based on TiO2 nanostructured particles - such as photo-induced self cleaning character and pollutants degradation. These TiO2 particles were modified by HEBM or Sol-gel method in order to decrease the band gap thus make them active in Visible light. The overall performance of the panel has been determined with regards to mechanical properties and thermal properties. In situ test has been also performed by employing the produced panels in a building retrofitting prototype placed in Coimbra, Portugal. This test has been modelled numerically and the comparison of the numerical results with the experimental data has permitted the validation of the theoretical tools used in the project. Simulations have been additionally used to evaluate the performance under different weather conditions. Four locations have been selected, studying in each of them several configurations. In all case, the performance of the MF-Retrofit panel is overall better than the commercial ones. Moreover, the project’s viability and sustainability was ensured by performing a LCA. Based on the encouraging results obtained from this multi-level research, the participating enterprises of the MF-Retrofit project intent to continue investing in the developed technologies in order to bring this multifunctional panel to the market.

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