Committee Chair

Yang, Sungwoo

Committee Member

Skjellum, Anthony; Danquah, Michael; Cox, Christopher L. (Christopher Lee)

Department

Dept. of Computational Science

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Energy consumption, specifically in the building sector is always increasing. One potential way to reduce energy consumption, is to reduce the heat loss in buildings or homes. Silica aerogels have grown in popularity as an insulating material due to their extremely low thermal conductivity. Very often the benefits of transparency as well as strength is ignored due to its brittleness. An effort has been taken to increase the strength using vacuum seal while maintaining their transparency. To understand the benefits of using silica aerogels as a replacement for glass window or wall in buildings, experimental validation was carried out in terms of transparency and strength. Thermal performances were visualized using mathematical model. The heat simulations were performed on the sealed and unsealed aerogel using the Multiphysics software ANSYS Workbench 2023 R2. The simulations helped predict the actual saving benefits of using aerogels as an insulator. Overall, the use of aerogels in the building sector has great potential for energy savings and can be a significant contribution to sustainable building design.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Center of Excellence for Applied Computational Science and Engineering (CEACSE) program at University of Tennessee.

Degree

Ph. D.; A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date

12-2023

Subject

Aerogels--Testing; Aergoels--Thermal fatigue; Sustainable buildings--Design and construction

Keyword

Silica aerogel, vacuum seal, absolute pressure, mechanical strength, thermal conductivity

Document Type

Doctoral dissertations

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

xvii, 85 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Date Available

9-1-2024

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