Paper Conference
Proceedings of eSim 2016: 9th Conference of IBPSA-Canada
 
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Dynamic effect of thermal bridges on the energy performance of residential buildings in BC
Fuad Baba, Hua GeAbstract: Thermal bridges in building envelopes contribute significantly to the heating energy consumption of residential buildings in Canada. The commonly used approach to implement thermal bridges in whole building energy modeling is the effective overall Uvalue method, which does not take into account the dynamic effect of thermal bridges. The objective of this paper is to investigate the dynamic effect of thermal bridges on the energy performance of multi-unit residential buildings under British Columbia’s climates. Two methods, i.e. dynamic 3D modeling method and the equivalent Uvalue method, are used to implement thermal bridge junctions in WUFI Plus program. A 30 storey pourin-place concrete building is chosen as a case study with different types of junctions. The results show that the inclusion of different thermal bridge junctions increases the annual heating energy load by 37.4-42.2% of this building. Compared to the dynamic 3D modeling method, the annual heating energy loads are underestimated by 12.5-14.8% using the equivalent U-value method. Keywords: dynamic effect of thermal bridges; equivalent U-value method; energy performance, residential buildings, building envelopes. Pages: 242 - 249 Paper:esim2016_67-155