Thermal performance under winter conditions of a reflective insulation based wall panel for emergency houses in Chile

Abstract

Casa FÉNIX solution for the emergency is a modular and progressive construction system based on a prefabricated timber structure that provides a great variety of growing possibilities. This initiative, originally conceived to take part in the 2014 Solar Decathlon Europe Competition, is central to many research activities carried out by the Department of Architecture of the Santa María Technical University of Valparaíso, Chile, the most recent of which is the FONDEF IDeA project "Systematization of non-structural components for an emergency house" Within the framework of this research, a lightweight, easy-to-assemble, low-cost wall solution has been developed. It consists on a sandwich panel composed of an expanded polystyrene (EPS) core and a cardboard honeycomb reinforcement on both sides, which constitutes air chambers. The inclusion of reflective layers on each of the sides of the air chambers significantly increases the thermal resistance of the element with no significant weight increase. The work addresses the winter performance of the aforementioned wall element variations, characterized by their thermal transmittances, U. The study has been carried out with analytical (UNE-EN-ISO 6946) and computational (THERM) models, which have been compared and validated by means of experimental tests. Transmittance tests carried out for different variations of the solution show compliance with the regulatory requirements for the three climatic zones of central Chile that gather 60% of the country's population. From these data a complete set of alternatives have been developed in order to respond to the different thermal demands of nine climatic zones of the country, that range from the aridity of the Atacama Desert to the cold Patagonian regions.