Material Studies for Thermal Responsive Composite Envelopes

The material-based studies examine through computation and physical prototyping layered composites for thermal responsive building envelopes. Focus is placed on surveying and computing a large series of materials across four groups, for then to test these materials from factors of solar energy reception capacities, internal heating methods, heat isolation coatings and layer bonding. An oak-polyethylene structure is developed based on the first studies and further tested towards implementation as part of an adaptive envelope demonstrator, with these studies focused on fabrication and assembly methods. Results of the developed, tested and applied composite as part of an adaptive envelope shows that the environmental-material composite is strongly influenced by colour and direct solar radiation exposure. This in turn allow a material-fabrication approach to program a responsive system driven by exergy. Reinforcing the responsive reaction of the composite by internal heating does not advance the performance, as coatings are needed to maintain the heat inside the material, which adds weight and isolate the composite from the thermal environment that otherwise is intended to provide the energy for driving the responsive behaviour. Please write your abstract here by clicking this paragraph.