This section contains brief outlines of the presentations being presented in Rome. Not all descriptions are available, but will be added shortly. For more immediate assistance send your questions to rima@rima.net.
Wednesday, 24 May
Keynote Address:
Net Zero, High Performance, Carbon Neutral Buildings are Required in Some Countries – What is your Industry’s Responsibility?
By Laverne Dalgleish
Many countries are moving to reduce carbon production and reducing the energy used by buildings can provide a significant contribution to this goal. Many times the building envelope is overlooked for more highly visible options, but the building envelope may present the most viable option. A high-performance building envelope provides additional benefits to the HVAC system, building durability and building resilience. Each construction industry has a role to play to meet the intended goal. All parts of the building must work together to achieve this goal.
This presentation suggests we have to look at buildings in a different light and identify where and how an industry can support the overall goal of building performance for both new construction and retrofitting existing buildings. Taking a different approach will help you look at the building envelope for opportunities for site carbon reduction which will contribute to the over-reaching goal.
Regional Updates
For Latin American, Europe, Australasia, Korea/Japan, North America, UK, Argentina
The presenters for all the regional updates will report on market trends in each region along with comments on how reflective materials are being used: residential, commercial, agricultural etc. applications. Information on industry challenges and/or industry achievements and in general giving insight to the overall “economic health” of Reflective technology will be shared.
Thermal Break Solutions for Commercial, All-Steel Buildings with Reflective Insulation
By James Fricker
Calculations per Australian Standard AS/NZ4859:2018 are used to show roof energy efficiency compliance for all-steel buildings that incorporate thermal break tape at Lysaght Supabridge frame joints.
A New Metric on Measuring and Labeling CO2 Emissions in Homes
By Steve Baden and Laurel Elam, RESNET
With the concern over climate change there was a need to develop a rating system for carbon emissions of homes. Working with the Natural Resource Defense Council, electric utilities and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory RESNET has adopted an ANSI standard for the rating of CO2 emissions of homes. The session will explain the new standard and explore what it means to policy makers, home builders, product manufacturers, code jurisdictions and policy makers.
Manufacturing Techniques
By Giovanni Roscini
This presentation will address production techniques of the main insulation products such as air bubble film, multilayer and expanded materials. The presentation will focus on production machines, raw materials, special techniques for laminated materials and additives to be used to increase the performance of finished products.
A review of the various type of materials used in reflective insulation, followed by a step by step through the production process and the techniques used for each type of material. The various additives used will also be discussed along with how those additives affect the production process and how those materials are used.
Specification for Reflective Insulation: EN and ISO Standards
By Maxime Duran and Andrea Zigowitz
The large family of reflective insulation is made up of very different products from each other, that is to say that materials that go into their composition as well as their shape are very varied. In this context, how to standardize the evaluation of essential characteristics of all these products without distorting the performance of each of them?
This is the technical challenge that Europe has just taken up following a process of analysing specificities of these different products and obtaining, at the end of 2022, a scientific consensus unanimously welcomed by the profession. In a first part of our presentation we will present, in a factual way, all tests which are proposed to specify all reflective insulations, and in a second part, we will explain one of the key stakes of this work which was the correct measurement of the thickness products in order to obtain realistic value of thermal resistance, while using the same test method as those in practice for conventional insulation.
Operation and Results from the Single-Sided Hot-Box Apparatus
By Michael Joyce
The presentation will include a description of the one-sided hot-box apparatus being used for reflective insulation evaluations. The type of measurements that have been completed with the apparatus will be discussed.
Thursday, 25 May
Modern Evaluation of Reflective Insulation Performance for Building Applications
By Hamed H. Saber and David W. Yarbrough
This presentation will provide a review of performance evaluations used in past decades and the evolution to a complete description of three-dimensional assemblies that considers all surfaces and geometries. Specific topics to be presented will include:
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- A quick look at the basic transport mechanisms that are must be considered.
- Hot-box evaluations of reflective insulation performance
- The contribution of the U.S. NBS and presentation of data in Handbooks
- Advancing to three-dimensional descriptions: why is this important?
- Expanding the list of parameters and phenomena that can be evaluated
- Evaluation of non-parallel surfaces, evaluating actual product designs, infiltration and defects.
Attic Radiant Barrier Performance Evaluation
By Dr. William Miller
A radiant barrier (RB) is typically a layer of aluminum foil placed in the attic adjacent an air space to block radiant heat transfer between a heat-radiating surface (such as a hot roof) and a heat-absorbing surface (such as conventional attic insulation). The RB’s primary function is to reduce the radiant heat flow crossing the insulated ceiling of the attic. Installing a radiant barrier in an attic will also increase the duct efficiency by lowering attic air summer temperatures and by reducing the infrared radiation striking the duct. The US Department of Commerce reports that over half of single-family homes are built with slab foundations. The statistic implies that possibly 56 million homes equipped for comfort conditioning have the air handler and ducts installed in an unconditioned attic. A computer tool will be exercised to compare the thermal performance of attics with and without radiant barrier systems. This energy assessment will highlight the value proposition for radiant barriers in Building America climate zones 1 through 6.
Reflective Technology Extended to Fenestration
By Dr. Saleh Alshehri
Prof. Alshehri will describe an evaluation program for design and performance of windows, including use of low-emittance materials. The presentation will identify opportunities for reflective insulations in Saudi Arabia and selected results on performance of roof assemblies with reflective insulation.
Mitigation of Building Energy Dynamics – Great Opportunity for Reflective Insulation Combined with Thermally Massive Systems
By Jan Kosny
A key feature of advance building envelope technologies used in today’s buildings is their ability for shifting the time of thermal response to the peak solar and/or exterior temperature excitations. This peak load shifting, being a part of the demand management policy, has already attracted a widespread attention, as it can lessen the impact of load fluctuation on the system’s operation energy consumption, improve the building integration with the power grid, and reduce the electricity costs for space conditioning. In passive applications, radiant barriers and reflective insulation technologies are well known for their contribution to the local temperature control, leading to improvements of the internal comfort. In dynamic applications, reflective insulation technologies, combined with conventional thermal mass and PCMs, in addition to peak load time shifting, can also provide significant reductions of overall thermal loads. In this presentation, a collection of experimental results from several system scale field test experiments will be presented to illustrate this capability.
PET/METPET and Aluminum Foil Supplies
By Chris Trummel and Ken Mitchell
This presentation on the global supply chain for PET/METPET and aluminium foil, will focus on supply chain issues for the reflective insulation end use. These versatile materials are crucial components in a wide range of industries, from packaging to construction and automotive manufacturing. However, their production and distribution face several challenges, including raw material scarcity, price volatility, and quality control issues. In this presentation, we will explore these challenges and discuss potential solutions to enhance the efficiency and reliability of the PET/METPET and aluminium foil supply chain.