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Evaluation of the Thermal and Structural …

Evaluation of the Thermal and Structural performance of potential energy Efficient Wall Systems for Mid-Rise Wood-Frame Buildings Hadia AWAD1, Mustafa GUL2, Hamid ZAMAN3, Haitao YU4, Mohamed AL-HUSSEIN5 1 PhD Student, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: 2 Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: 3 PhD Student, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: 4 Senior Researcher, Landmark Group of Builders, 9765 54 Ave.

Evaluation of the Thermal and Structural Performance of Potential Energy Efficient Wall Systems for Mid-Rise Wood-Frame Buildings Hadia AWAD1, Mustafa GUL2, Hamid ZAMAN3, Haitao YU4, Mohamed AL-

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1 Evaluation of the Thermal and Structural performance of potential energy Efficient Wall Systems for Mid-Rise Wood-Frame Buildings Hadia AWAD1, Mustafa GUL2, Hamid ZAMAN3, Haitao YU4, Mohamed AL-HUSSEIN5 1 PhD Student, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: 2 Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: 3 PhD Student, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: 4 Senior Researcher, Landmark Group of Builders, 9765 54 Ave.

2 , Edmonton, AB, Canada T6E 5J4. Email: 5 Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Email: ABSTRACT Approximately 30% of energy use in Canada is consumed in buildings. The largest component of this energy consumption in multi-family residential buildings is space heating. One of the primary functions of building enclosure is reducing space-heating energy . Although heat flow cannot be completely prevented, it can be controlled to reduce energy consumption, create a sustainable environment, and implement indoor human comfort. However, this can be achieved by constructing a thermally resistant building enclosure.

3 This study aims at developing and evaluating some innovative potential energy efficient wall systems for mid-rise wood frame buildings in terms of their Thermal and Structural performances. Regarding the Thermal resistance performance , four wall systems were developed, installed in a full-scale testing house, and examined on a long-term period along with a baseline wall system. The selection of the wall systems was based on specific considerations; current practice, preliminary Structural analysis, prefabricability, and expected energy efficiency. Several sensors were installed at each wall system; heat flux, thermocouple and humidity sensors.

4 The results from the Thermal analysis and the Structural tests provide useful directions toward future development of energy efficient wall systems. INTRODUCTION Buildings account for 30-40% of the total primary energy use and 24% of the generation of greenhouse gases globally (Dodoo et al., 2011; IEA, 2011). If current trends continue, by 2025, buildings worldwide will be the largest consumers of global energy , using as much power as the transportation and industrial sectors combined. Recent studies have found that improving energy -efficiency in buildings is the least costly way to reduce a large quantity of carbon emissions (IEA, 2011).

5 Meanwhile, the building sector offers significant potential to reduce primary energy use and CO2 emissions (Rohdin, 2013) through such measures as reduced heating demand, increased efficiency of the energy supply chain, and greater use of renewable resources for materials and fuels (Shanks et al., 2006). Reductions in the specific 2255 Construction Research Congress 2014 ASCE 2014energy demand of buildings and increased use of renewable energy are important measures of climate change mitigation (Berggren and Wall, 2013). For this reason, energy -efficiency in buildings is now a primary objective of energy policy at the regional, national, and international levels (P rez-Lombard et al.)

6 , 2008). Several strategies can be used to realize this potential , including the increased incorporation of energy -efficiency requirements into building standards, such as requirements that specify minimum energy -efficiency for buildings. Wood-framing is the preferred approach for the building envelopes of low-rise residential facilities and commercial buildings in North America, being that wood-frame building envelopes are lightweight, easily built, durable, renewable, and lower in embodied energy than most alternative building materials (Li et al., 2009, Canadian Wood Council, 2013). The Canadian Wood Council (2004) has stated that this is due to the proven performance of properly designed and built wood-frame buildings, which have historically provided strong and lasting housing.

7 Building on the success of low-rise wood-frame buildings, in British Columbia, wood-frame construction solutions for mid-rise buildings have been developed and refined in recent years, leading to more sustainable communities and affordable housing solutions that can positively change the face of North American cities and provide more multi-unit buildings for a fast-growing population. Internationally, the conditions for market growth of multi-storey construction seem to be most favorable in Sweden, the UK, and Germany (Mahapatra et al., 2012). Using light wood-frame structures for constructing mid-rise buildings means that there is higher compressive load bearing on the wall systems.

8 This needs to be addressed by increasing the strength of the walls by reducing stud spacing. The use of more lumber per panel to increase Structural performance , however, is accompanied by a significant decrease in Thermal resistance performance , since wood has a relatively high Thermal conductivity compared to insulation materials, resulting in a Thermal bridge between the indoor and outdoor environments. A study by Berggren and Wall (2013) has shown the increasingly prominent role of Thermal bridges in transmission heat transfer calculations to improve a building s energy performance .

9 However, our research aims to test the Structural and Thermal performance of the selected wall systems taking into account anticipated future building code requirements for both Thermal efficiency and Structural capacity. Therefore, this study investigates the Thermal performance of the selected potential wall systems under extreme cold and dry climatic conditions, which provides useful understanding of their suitability as energy efficient wall system for mid-rise buildings, achieving a trade-off between the Structural and Thermal performances of the selected wall systems, and meeting future building code requirements both Thermal efficiency and Structural capacity.

10 (2007) provides energy performance requirements for buildings based on climate zones. Climate zones are determined on the basis of Heating Degree Days (HDD). An HDD is a measure of how cold a location is over a period of time relative to a base temperature of 18 C ( , 2007). The province of Alberta contains four climate zones resulting in a range of HDD between 3000 and 7000. The city of 2256 Construction Research Congress 2014 ASCE 2014 Edmonton, where the testing house is installed, has got a record range of 5000 to 6000 HDD. In climate zones of 5000 to 7000 HDD, (2007) recommends a minimum assembly RSI (R-value) of wood frame of RSI ( h ft2 F/Btu).


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