Insulating with geometry: Employing cellular geometry to increase the thermal performance of building facades

This paper presents the current stage of a study examining the potential of complex geometry concrete tiles to improve thermal performance in building envelopes. This stage focused on developing tile geometries and testing them using physical and digital CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations. Tiles were developed taking two approaches: (i) developing variation from basic geometries (triangle, square, circle and trapezoid) and (ii) learning from natural envelopes. Following successful validation of experimental and numerical data, the designed tiles were tested using a digital simulation (Star-CCM+). The results show that for the examined configuration (flow perpendicular to the surface), a significant reduction of heat transfer rate occurs in most of the tested tiles. Furthermore, geometries that achieved the same thermal performance as the base-line flat tile saved up to 38 percent of the material.