Modeling of Natural Plant Materials to Enable Performance Evaluation of Environmentally Friendly Buildings

研究表明，建造绿色屋顶有可能减少空间调节的能源需求，减少雨水径流，延长屋顶膜的使用寿命，改善空气质量，减少城市热岛效应。量化绿色屋顶效益的预测方法？减少能源消耗和水径流的能力是必要的。拟议研究的长期目标是开发和验证可用于计算美国特定地区覆盖天然植物材料的建筑围护结构的热量/质量传递的方法和工具。绿色屋顶是目前建筑中最流行的天然植物材料，本研究的目的是提供工具和计算方法来量化绿色屋顶的夏季降温效果。绿色屋顶的性能与气候有关，在评估这项技术的投资时，对潜在的节能进行可靠的估计是至关重要的。在这个项目中提炼的实验室实验方法可以应用于其他天然植物材料，在未来被纳入建筑围护结构。此外，绿色教育的影响将不局限于两所参与的学校，而是整个社区的教师和学生对探索环境问题感兴趣。在未来，本研究的研究成果将被转移到其他多样化的天然材料中，不仅在建筑屋顶上，而且在建筑垂直墙壁上进行整合。

Research has shown that building green roofs have the potential to reduce energy demand on space conditioning, reduce storm water runoff, expand the lifetime of roofing membranes, improve air quality, and reduce the urban heat island effect in cities. Predictive methods to quantify the benefits of green roofs? capabilities to reduce energy consumption and water runoff are needed. The long-term goal of the proposed research is to develop and verify the methods and tools that can be used to calculate heat/mass transfer through a building envelope covered with natural plant material for a given location in the United States. The goal of the present study is to provide tools and calculation methods to quantify summer cooling effects of a green roof, which presently is the most popular natural plant material for buildings. The performance of green roofs is climate dependent and having a reliable estimate on potential energy savings is vital in evaluating the investment in this technology. The laboratory experimental methodology to be refined in this project can be applied to other natural plant materials to be incorporated into building envelopes in the future. Furthermore, the impact of the GREEN educational component will not be limited to the two participating schools, but rather an entire community of teachers and students interested in exploring environmental issues. In the future, research results of the present study will be transferable to other diverse natural materials to be integrated not only on building roofs, but also on building vertical walls.