A new prototype multilayered fluid window system devised by researchers at the University of Toronto may have the potential to be an effective tool in the push toward greater sustainability in the building industry, according to their research published in the national academy of sciences journal PNAS.
The technology is based on principles derived from animal biology and was developed by recent mechanical engineering master’s graduate Raphael Kay with the help of Associate Professor Ben Hatton and his team over a period of years, including Ph.D. candidate Charlie Katrycz and Alstan Jakubiec, an assistant professor in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
The prototypes work by controlling the type and distribution of solar energy that enters a building through its envelope, discerning between the wavelengths to filter out infrared heat while retaining the beneficial illumination needed to keep a building’s carbon footprint relatively low by avoiding artificial lighting sources.
“In the middle of the day in winter, you’d probably want to let in both – but in the middle of the day in summer, you’d want to let in just the visible light and not the heat,” Kay explains. “Current systems typically can’t do this – they either block both or neither. They also have no ability to direct or scatter the light in beneficial ways.”
Working from a previously-developed facade technology that used injected pigments to achieve a similar result, the team layered flat sheets of plastic over each other in a stack to provide augmented filtering functions in a process they say is analogous to the way a squid’s skin pigments reflects and absorbs light.
Each layer is permeated with one-millimeter-deep channels into which the fluids are pumped using digitally-controlled pumps. A customized injection of pigments and other particles into the fluid allows for the selection and control of wavelengths, intensity, and direction in which light is transmitted into interior spaces.
“It’s simple and low-cost, but it also enables incredible combinatorial control. We can design liquid-state dynamic building facades that do basically anything you’d like to do in terms of their optical properties,” Kay added.
A computer model developed by Jakubiec gauged how well an entire facade system composed of the panels might work when applied to a hypothetical construction.
“If we had just one layer that focuses on modulating the transmission of near-infrared light – so not even touching the visible part of the spectrum – we find that we could save about 25 per cent annually on heating, cooling and lighting energy over a static baseline,” Kay said. “If we have two layers – infrared and visible – it’s more like 50 percent. These are very significant savings.”
Hatton indicated that future developments of the technology could incorporate the use of AI in the control of the digital pumping process. “The idea of a building that can learn – that can adjust this dynamic array on its own to optimize for seasonal and daily changes in solar conditions – is very exciting for us,” he explained finally. “We are also working on how to scale this up effectively so that you could cover a whole building. That will take work but given that this can all be done with simple, non-toxic, low-cost materials, it’s a challenge that can be solved.”
The research falls in line with other initiatives pursued through U of T's new Centre for Sustainable Built Environment. Hatton added he has hopes for the filter system's broad-scale incorporation into smart building technology. The full results of the study can be found here.
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