| Abstract | Buildings consume about 40 % of the national energy requirement in a developed country, and the addition of thermal insulation in building envelope construction is considered as the most primary and effective way to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Recent upgrades of energy codes in Europe and North America have also recommended higher levels of insulation in building envelopes. All these factors have provided a fresh impetus for the search for high-performance thermal insulation. Among various nonconventional insulations being introduced in the construction industry, as the next-generation thermal insulation, vacuum insulation panel (VIP) appears to be one of the most promising insulation materials, with the highest thermal insulating capacity (up to 10 times more thermally efficient than conventional thermal insulation materials). Quite naturally, the application of VIP in building envelope construction offers many advantages such as increased energy efficiency of exterior building envelopes, thinner wall thickness, optimum space use, reduced material consumption, etc. However, the acceptance of VIP in the construction industry is critically dependent on the cost and long-term performance. The expensive core material (e.g., precipitated silica or fumed silica) is one of the main reasons for the higher cost of VIPs that offer a satisfactory long-term service life in building envelope applications. To overcome this cost barrier for the mass application of VIPs in the building industry, researchers at the National Research Council Canada - Construction Portfolio have developed a low-cost fiber-powder composite core material for the VIP. This paper briefly introduces the concept of fiber-powder composite and present performance assessment data from laboratory-scale trial VIPs (300 mm by 300 mm) constructed with fiber-powder composite core materials. |
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