Translucent Aerogel Insulation Materials

SILICA AEROGEL AS A TRANSLUCENT THERMAL INSULATING MATERIAL... 

One of the most promising options of flexible insulation materials to be used for translucent foil structures involves granular silica aerogel as insulation material - see Fig. 12.2 (Cremers, 2008). Not only does aerogel have excellent thermal-insulation properties (see r-values and /-values in Fig. 12.3), but it is translucent as well. 

Due to the absence of a stabilising pressurisation in mechanically tensioned structures, another type of aerogel insulation is employed. This version is a fleece made of two-component fibres which is sprinkled with aerogel particles. This produces a flexible and pressure-resistant mat which has highly favourable insulating properties. This fleece can be used both in combination with transparent ETFE foils and with translucent membrane materials such as PTFE-coated, glass-fibre fabric - see Fig. 12.4. The... 

In case of the thermal insulation, the technical limits are nearly reached today and a further improvement will affect aspects like the units transparency (yiP - Vacuum Insula-ti(Mi Panels) or their maximum size, not mentioning the costs. A functional transparent vacuum insulating unit with U-values of 0.1 W/(m K) is not available by now due to the technical problems of keeping the system permanently gas-tight. Therefore, the use of translucent Silica Aerogels, as a highly efficient insulating material inside the/Gf/ s cavity, represents the best possible thermal insulation at the moment. 

On the other hand, silica aerogel has also optical function, translucent or transparent, as described in another section (Chapter 3). This excellent thermal insulating material is most ideal for solar energy application. 

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