In the last few decades, the attention of researchers has been focused on the characterization of aerogels in order to improve the thermal performance of transparent building envelopes. Granular aerogel is already spread in the market thanks to the easy manufacturing system, whereas the difficulty in producing monoliths without defects, cracks, and inhomogeneity limited the diffusion of monolithic aerogel systems. A new production process for the monolithic panels was developed at Union College (Schenectady, NY, USA); it is a rapid supercritical extraction technique which allows a reduction in production time (only a few hours) and results in less solvent waste. Panes with maximum dimensions of about 100 × 100 mm were fabricated and composed in a unique glazing system, with external dimensions 300 × 300 mm. The thermal characterization of the innovative monolithic aerogel glazing system (simple float glazing 4.7-mm-thick monolithic aerogel pane 15-mm-thick simple float glazing 4.7 mm thick), which was carried out by means of a Small Hot Box apparatus, showed a thermal transmittance value of about 1.1 W/(m2K). Data was used in dynamic simulations of a typical non-residential building. They showed that the new investigated solution allows a valuable reduction with respect to a low-e double glazing system in terms of heating energy demand (about 5–7% for Helsinki, 8–12% for Paris, and 10–15% for Turin), for different window-to-wall ratios.
Mechanical characterization of a concrete masonry block enhanced with micro-encapsulated phase changing materials
