FEM Analysis: A Review of the Most Common Thermal Bridges and Their Mitigation

Domenico Curto, Vincenzo Franzitta, Andrea Guercio and Pierluca Martorana
Additional contact information
Domenico Curto: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Vincenzo Franzitta: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Andrea Guercio: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Pierluca Martorana: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: The necessity to improve the energy saving potential of buildings is now a duty. European and national policies are being implemented to address the important decisions being made on this subject. For these reasons, several studies focus on this relevant topic. This paper review not only focusses on it but studies it in-depth. A commercial 3D simulation software was used to design a building sited in Palermo estimating the thermal losses before and after external envelope insulation. In particular, all the thermal bridges (TBs) were analysed with the finite element method (FEM) and mitigated with rock wool insulation. The paper shows the linear thermal transmittance difference and heat flux loss before and after TB mitigation. The results confirm the importance of installing an external insulation layer in the old building envelope. The linear thermal transmittance of TBs and the associated heat flux loss often decrease by more than 50%.

Keywords: thermal bridges; thermal bridges mitigation; FEM analysis; building energy saving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2318/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2318/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:7:p:2318-:d:777111

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().