Grantee Research Project Results

Final Report: Growing Alternative Sustainable Buildings: Bio-composite Products from Natural Fiber, Biodegradable and Recyclable Polymer Materials for Load-bearing Construction Components

EPA Grant Number: SU832512
Title: Growing Alternative Sustainable Buildings: Bio-composite Products from Natural Fiber, Biodegradable and Recyclable Polymer Materials for Load-bearing Construction Components
Investigators: Adams, Robert , Giles, Harry , Kim, Kyoung-Hee , Robertson, Richard , Skerlos, Steven J. , Keolian, Gregory , Freeman, Jeremy W. , Driver, Stephanie , Bard, Joshua D. , Jelinek, Steven J. , Putalik, Erin S. , Heininger, Eric C. , Bayer, Carrie E. , Cho, Michelle , Kerfoot, Katie , Cox, Brandon E. , Stepowski, John S. , Lin, Shangchao , Zhang, Han , DiCorcia, Thomas , Popp, Sarah Ann , Yamamoto, Mitsuyo
Institution: University of Michigan
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: September 30, 2005 through May 30, 2006
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2005) RFA Text |  Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Awards , P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Sustainable and Healthy Communities

Objective:

Buildings (residential and commercial) account for about 40% of the total annual energy consumption in the United States of America; they produce 35% of the total carbon dioxide emissions and attribute 40% of landfill wastes. The building industry is also a large consumer of non-renewable materials and this trend has escalated dramatically over the past century. To this end, we have been addressing sustainability concerns related to building construction materials through an integrative research approach applied to building façade elements, where we can collectively influence design, materials, construction, energy consumption and disposal. We have been carrying out preliminary research in the design development phase of this project and during the second phase, we plan to create a framework and implementation plan for manufacturing, erection, use and disposal. The final outcome for construction will be an inevitable symbiosis of the process itself. The end result will be to propose a range of building products for transparent and translucent façade enclosures that holistically embrace all the manufacturing and end use issues from cradle to grave and life thereafter, using bio-composite and recyclable polymer materials. We have been modeling our research project on technologies and materials that will form a new paradigm that rethinks the design of building enclosures in the future. Alternative typologies of transparent and translucent load-bearing façade systems based on biocomposite and recyclable materials were investigated architecturally, structurally, thermally, materially and environmentally. Together with the means of manufacture, and we show how efficiencies were obtained and verified. The success of the project clearly shows the future potential for biocomposite façade systems which ultimately contribute to reducing energy consumption, pollutant emissions and non-renewable material uses.  In order to progress our research, we set out to investigate the potential for using biocomposite and recyclable polymer materials in buildings, associated with all the external factors that would affect this choice.  To this end we set the following objectives for the project:  

• Carry out a background research in existing buildings and products 
• Define a baseline product for comparison (eg typical glazed curtain walling system)
• Configure a simple new concept wall panel and evaluate in comparison with the baseline • Identify advantages/drawbacks of the concept system and develop improvement alternatives. 
• Define potentially new paradigms for applications 
• Evaluate concepts application architecturally, structurally, environmentally, and materially. 
• Define a manageable set of parameters and metrics that will be used in the evaluation
• Establish how other influencing factors will be reported, although not studied in much detail. • Prepare full scale prototypes to aid in evaluations and simulation calibration 
• Carry out desk top research in materials, building system performance.
• Carry out thermal, structural and materials testing based on calibrated simulations.
• Consult with industry, advisors/investigators and review.
• Prepare ongoing concept design illustrations consistent with research model evaluations.  

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

We explored the above along interdisciplinary lines and categorize our findings by discipline:  

Architectural – A number of building typologies and façade panel typologies were developed, unique to the product characteristics. These include lightweight, easy to build, ability to be customized to achieve optimum environmental performance, create innovative aesthetic opportunities through different geometric configurations and color. Use was also made of modern digital manufacturing processes to optimize environmental performance with structural and building performance. 

Environmental Sustainability – A life cycle analysis was carried out on a functional unit of the product to compare with a base line case, commercial curtain wall façade system. This required a number of details to be resolved to ensure that the product is a practical alternative to conventional systems, to provide as realistic a comparison as possible. The life cycle analysis demonstrated that the biocomposite façade system provided overall environmental advantages, when compared to a conventional glazing system, particularly in relation to overall energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Other benefits would be in lowering of energy bills for buildings. This was primarily due to its higher solar/thermal performance compared to conventional double glazing systems. 

Thermal – Since the panelized system was believed to offer advantages in thermal performance, a significant part of the project was to test the performance of the various typologies. For this, a thermal chamber was designed and constructed to enable first order analysis to be carried out to calibrate comparisons between different arrangements. The thermal chamber was designed and conventional standards modified to allow fast turnover of testing and results evaluation. This included measurements for U value and SHGC values, the standard metric for defining thermal and solar performance of fenestrations in the building industry.  The tests proved to be successful in proving our hypothesis that the bio-composite panels would show superior environmental performance. During testing, additional behavioral characteristics were identified for further research to measure increased performance advantages compared to conventional glazed façade systems.

Structural – One of the unique features in the design of the panel system is the integration of the façade structural behavior with its solar performance.  For example the composite depth configuration integrates the ribs used for shading with the panel to span structurally as a composite cross section, similar to what was originally used for skin structures in aerospace structures. Therefore the material characteristics are central to the panel structural and environmental performance. One key decision in the use of appropriate materials for the façade system, is the use of thermally inert materials to avoid thermal bridging between the inner and outer skins of the panel. This lead to materials that are less stiff than conventional systems, but the shading components that also act structurally, allow us to use alternative materials such as biocomposite products in combination with light weight polymer materials. We experienced some challenges in the jointing of the materials, but this has now been overcome through researching and testing out alternative materials derived through technology transfer applications from non building manufacture. 

Materials – Since the primary driving influence for this project is sustainability, we were concerned to find materials that could be easily recycled, originated from sustainable sources such as agriculture and at the same time we had to ensure that the materials chosen would be able to perform under normal building applications.  A range of polymer skin materials were explored and we found that polycarbonate possess superior performance characteristics across a range of parameters including, strength, toughness, light transmission, UV resistance , abrasion resistance and environmental performance. The biocomposite core materials investigated include kenaf, cardboard, wheat straw and bamboo. From all of these, bamboo appears to be the superior product environmentally and is expected to perform the best. Further work still needs to be done to confirm is performance in the panel assembly. 

Conclusions:

The results of our research and design show great potential for considering the biocomosite façade system concept for buildings in the future. Advantages derived from the product include, lightweight, good thermal performance, improved light transmission, a passive energy wall that advantageously modulates solar gains over the entire year, provides a basis to encourage agricultural diversity and is a sustainable product for the future. 

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 1 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

Ecological effects, bioavailability, ecosystem, habitat, integrated assessment, green chemistry, life-cycle analysis, alternatives, sustainable development, clean technologies, innovative technology, renewable, waste reduction, waste minimization, cost benefit, public good, conservation, environmental assets, engineering, ecology, analytical, EPA regions, agriculture, industry, building construction, manufacturing methods, technology transfer, product design., Sustainable Industry/Business, Scientific Discipline, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, POLLUTION PREVENTION, Chemistry and Materials Science, cleaner production/pollution prevention, Environmental Engineering, Energy, clean technology, modular panelized construction system, recyclable polymer material, construction material, green design, clean manufacturing designs, natural pozzolans, hydraulic cement, product life cycle, sustainable development, environmentally preferable products, alternative materials, cleaner production, energy efficiency, environmentally conscious design, pollution prevention design, green home building

P3 Phase II:

Growing Alternative Sustainable Buildings: Biocomposite Products from Natural Fiber, Biodegradable and Recyclable Polymer Materials for Load-bearing Construction Components  | Final Report