Use of drone for a campus building envelope study

Abstract

In 2014, 41% of total U.S. energy consumption was consumed in residential and commercial buildings, or about 40 quadrillion British thermal units according to Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey. As the number of commercial buildings and floor space increasing, business, industry and government organizations are under tremendous economic and environmental pressures to reduce energy consumption and dollar savings. Building "Envelope" generally refers to those building components (walls, doors, windows and roof) that enclose conditioned spaces and through which thermal energy is transferred to or from the outdoor environment and are significant sources of heat loss. A building envelope study provides a good qualitative and analytical understanding of the thermal performance of major building envelope components, identifies major deficiencies, and helps developing appropriate energy management project to improve performance. In this building envelope study, infrared thermography is used to assess envelope performance of five buildings on East Tennessee State University Campus. Infrared thermography provides a simple, fast, non-destructive, realistic, and reliable technology in determining the spatial temperature distributions of building envelope surfaces. An ArduCopter 3DR Hexa-C Drone and Fluke TI25 infrared hand held camera were used for rapid data collection. The camera was automated to take an image every 2 sec and a 10 minute drone flight captured 300 images covering whole building envelope. Data analysis and reports were carried out with the use of Smartview software and FLIR Reporter pro software. High quality infrared images and the data analysis reveal various insulation defects and heat loss issues through building envelopes. Cost-effective solutions are recommended to all problems detected which will potentially improve long term energy efficiency of the buildings and contribute to sustainable campus infrastructure development.