Studies financed by VIPA Intl

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Studies financed by VIPA International:

One of the main reasons supporting the creation of VIPA International was the need to speed up the standardisation process hereby solving some of the technical matters about the use of this technology in different applications. VIPA International financed the following projects:


An integrated study on the integration of VIPs in ultra-low energy consumption concrete prefabricated buildings
Commissioned to: Qingdao Kerui New Environmental Materials Group 
Timeframe: January 2018 to March 2019
Description of the project: The Chinese government is encouraging the development of environmental friendly ultra-low-energy-consumption buildings. This study looked at applying VIP in precasted-walls for prefabricated buildings with decorative surface layer. In the past, the ‘sandwich-structure’ insulation methods are mainly adopted by the construction of prefabricated buildings, with expanded polystyrene (EPS), extruded polystyrene foam (XPS) etc. as insulation layers. By applying the VIP-integrated-precasted-walls (prefabricated external insulation), several problems were tackled, including reducing the thickness of the enclosure wall, avoiding the cold-bridge generated by the connection of inner and outer walls and also lowering the fire risks.
The study has a twofold objective:
  • To explore the different methods for application of VIPs in ultra-low-energy-consumption prefabricated buildings.
  • To achieve an average heat transfer coefficient of 0.15 W/(m2·K) of the integrated-precasted-walls with decorative surface layer, to fulfill the requirements for the enclosure walls of the ultra-low-energy-consumption buildings.

Calibration of the lift-off technique for measuring the internal pressure of fumed silica VIPs and determination of boundary conditions for the lift-off measurements and processing of measurement raw data
Commissioned to: Forschungsinstitut für Wärmeschutz e.V. (FIW), München, Germany and Hanita Coatings, Kibbutz Hanita, Israel
Timeframe: May 2016 to April 2017
Description of the project: The foil lift-off technique is the most commonly used method to determine the internal pressure of VIPs during and after the production process. It is used for more than a decade now without any evidence or comparison to a direct and calibrated measurement method. Besides, boundary conditions for the measurement of the internal pressure according to the lift-off technique are not fixed in a standard or in scientific articles. The purpose of this project is to:
  1. calibrate the readings of the lift-off units against calibrated pressure gauges;
  2. fix the boundary conditions for the measurement;
  3. describe a reliable procedure for deriving pressure results from the obtained measurement raw data (assessment and algorithm);
  4. cross-check the results with fast methods, such as the Va-Q-Check device.

Development of an advanced technique for measuring the effect of moisture content on the thermal conductivity of VIPs
Commissioned to: Hanita Coatings, Kibbutz Hanita, Israel
Timeframe: April 2016 to April 2017
Description of the project: Recent lab and field tests on fumed silica panels showed that the degradation rate of VIPs is predominantly determined by the moisture permeating through the envelope and much less by the permeated air molecules. In the last 2 years Hanita has developed very efficient and easy to operate technique for measuring the response of any core material to the increasing pressure of air. However, at the moment there is no available easy to operate technique for measuring the relation between the amount of moisture absorbed by fumed silica cores and their thermal conductivity. The newly developed technique will be later used by labs for qualification actions of commercial panels and by labs and industrial companies to characterized newly developed core materials.


Compressive strength of vacuum insulation panels according to EN 826: difficulties with the measurement results for VIPs and possible solutions
Commissioned to: Forschungsinstitut für Wärmeschutz e.V. (FIW), München, Germany
Timeframe: January to September 2016
Description of the project: Results of compressive strength according to EN 826 of VIPs without any facings (e.g. EPS, PU, etc.) are difficult to evaluate. The main reason is the absence of a linear range in the stress-strain graph, caused by warping of the panel, surface joints and the general behaviour of an inhomogeneous product under load. The consequence of this is that the values for the compressive strength for products on the market are highly depending on the skills of the testing laboratory and show a rather high range of diversity. This problem is very striking specially in thin panels like 10 mm or 20 mm. This project will describe possible approaches to eliminate the fortuity and to increase the reproducibility for the compressive strength measurement on VIP.
 
The results of these studies are available to the members of the association only. In case you want to join the association, please fill in the membership application form at the bottom of this page - click here.